[traveltax]

Originally Posted by stavem

okay. I read your knowledge base on your website.

Here's the situation.
I do have a tax home. No problem there.
I'll be working over 1000 miles away and not returning.
head of household filing status.

Now, if SD has one of the lowest tax burdens, why is the increase so much? My taxable rate offered is $23 and my total hourly rate is $43. Seems kind of high to me. DOes this sound like an "aggressive" tax plan?

I don't plan on doing this for long, and my taxable rate won't be much lower, but a little lower, on my return next year.

I don't get the perdiem rate per state, either, but I see that SD is 60/90. So under your record keeping guidelines, I shouldn't have to keep a record of my food expenses for the 3 months I'm there? What about housing expenses for my rental?

I used to have my yard done in 2004 and part of 2005, but stopped in 2006. Plan on having it done again while I'm gone because i'm gone, so THAT I could claim also, even though I had it done 2 years ago?

Thanks for all the info.

I am making the following assumptions:

1) Your tax home is 1000 miles away and you are returning home, but not during the assignment
2) You will be in Sioux Falls

Where are you getting 60/90? Assuming that you are traveling to Sioux Falls, the meal rate is 39$/day and the lodging is 60$/day equalling 99$/day. If your contract is for 36 hours a week, then your per diem is 102.85$ /day (43$-23$ X 36 hours / 7 days) which is almost 5$ / hr more than allowed by the per diems tables.

I am confused as to what you are referring to by "increase". The difference b/ your taxable and non taxable is your reimbursement that I noted above. The 23$/hr is OK. When I refer to "agressive" I am looking for taxable wages below 15$/hr (that is my personal benchmark, not an IRS dictate)

The yard care is generally deductible.

Remember too, that you will pay home state taxes on your SD income

[stavem]

I don't konw where i got the 60/90 ow whatever either, now.

okay. The rate they're offering is $43/hr with a gurantee of 48 hours. If the max perdiem in SD is $99 per day, the way i work it out is they will be paying me a per diem of $137 day
(43-23*48)/7, right? So they're paying me $38/day over the per diem.

Why, and how do I recoup that except have extra taxes withheld?

AS I under stand the tax code, and apparently I don't at all,
my home state with a rate of 6% (MI) will tax me on the portion that SD doesn't (which is 4%) so MI will tax me on 2%?

Can i just hire you now?

Still trying to see through the forest for the trees!

[traveltax]

Originally Posted by stavem

I don't konw where i got the 60/90 ow whatever either, now.

okay. The rate they're offering is $43/hr with a gurantee of 48 hours. If the max perdiem in SD is $99 per day, the way i work it out is they will be paying me a per diem of $137 day
(43-23*48)/7, right? So they're paying me $38/day over the per diem.

Why, and how do I recoup that except have extra taxes withheld?

AS I under stand the tax code, and apparently I don't at all,
my home state with a rate of 6% (MI) will tax me on the portion that SD doesn't (which is 4%) so MI will tax me on 2%?

Can i just hire you now?

Still trying to see through the forest for the trees!

Go to my website (see signature) and print out the workbook