what items can a company truckdriver deduct from his gross income ??

Question

looking for a list or web page with a list

Answer 1

Basically, any out-of-pocket expense you incur due the driving of the truck that the company doesn't reimburse you for. Examples include gas, oil change, truck wash, repairs, scale fees, tolls, tires. Plus, if you are away from home overnight, you can deduct hotel rooms and meals.

The meals are not deducted at the full rate, but are only deducted at 50%. However, if you are subject to the Department of Transportation "hours of service" limits, then it is 70% for 2005 and gradually increasing until it hits 80% in 2008.

Instead of keeping all your meal and hotel receipts, you can take a standard "per diem" amount. This is an IRS-approved amount that they say a typical person spends on breakfast, lunch, dinner, or hotels. Even if you spend less than the per diem, you can still deduct the per diem amount from your income. You can find this either using the tax prep software you buy, or if you want, go to www.irs.gov.

Finally, there are two ways your employer may reinburse your for meals, hotels, and other expenses. The first is using an accountable plan. This is the best alternative. Even though you won't be able to "write off" any expenses reinbursed to you by an accountable plan when you do your taxes, you never really paid for these expenses since they were fully reimbursed to you. Money reimbursed to you under an accountable plan is NOT taxed when you get it. It is basically paid to you "under the table".

If you are reimbursed under a non-accountable plan, then the reimbursement IS taxed which means you can and should write off the expenses when you do your tax return. This is less desireable since it means more work doing your taxes, and you will probably end up with slightly less in the end due to caviats in our tax law that doesn't let you take full credit for the expenses.

Answer 2

depends on weather or not you are over the road or local, you won't find any list..but any spacial clothing, work shoes, meals exc.. usually it is best just to go with the standard deducts on this as they are seldom more than that number anyway..