Welcome to the TravelTax Blog

While you may have read my articles on various websites, or my posts on FB pages and other forums, from time to time I like to wax eloquent without fitting my thoughts into someone else’s prescripted format. Some of the entries may be long and a few will simply be rants. Whatever the case, you are guaranteed to find some nugget of tax knowledge fitting for your situation with a dash of sarcasm or philosophy.

Since our clients are primarily engaged in multistate assignments, cross border employment or posted abroad, they share a common connection of working on the road, exploring the world or just planting themselves in a foreign land ….. travelers and nomads at heart.

Be sure to visit our website http://www.traveltax.com

Thanks for reading!

Creative Record Keeping

In a December 2017 tax court case in Canada, the taxpayer was asked to supply documentation for his expenses. The court record states:

…..In the course of the audit of the Corporation, the Appellant was asked to provide records to show the amount of the expenses which he said he had incurred for the Corporation. He gave the auditor three grocery bags of unsorted receipts. When he was asked to organize the receipts into some sort of coherent order, he said that he was unable to do so. The Appellant admitted in cross-examination that his record keeping was “shoddy”.

🙂

Comprehensive Links to the Class Action Suits Regarding OT Inclusion of per diems

A number or readers have asked me for this:

There are 3 class action suits with healthcare staffing firms and 1 trucking firm, each seeking to have the OT rate include the hourly taxable + hourly equivalent per diem. The premise for this is that some of the agencies in the class pay or penalize per diem by the hour.

Just because an agency is named in the suit does NOT mean that every agency listed is at fault. Dragging in some deep pockets is great marketing but merely that. Also beware of the hype when these suits are published. Instead of focusing on the issue, promoters will embellish the facts to lead a reader to believe that there is some universal injustice that needs to be corrected.

2018.02.17 Docket

2018.08 Denial of summary Judgement

Class Action Fastaff

ARN vs

First Wave of State Tax Return Changes

The Federal tax overhaul changed the landscape for many state returns as they pull for items on the federal return. NY will now allow State and Local Tax (SALT) deductions in full on the NY return even if the taxpayer takes the standard deduction on the Federal return

In addition, Alimony and Moving expenses will continue to be allowed at the state level

 

 

Quote from Canadian Tax Foundation Newsletter (look what US tax reform has done)

Time is required to properly digest the complex US proposals (after all, the US Treasury itself has not yet released regulations), but it will be very important for our government to acknowledge the proposals’ impact on Canada and to indicate a path forward. Canada has many advantages. Perhaps we have relied too much, for too many years, on our competitive tax rate relative to the United States’. Now that we no longer enjoy the tax rate advantage, a new course needs to be plotted.

Class Action OT Suits in Healthcare Staffing and Trucking – What to Know

Below is linked a joint statement from the parties in one of the OT suits circulating in the healthcare staffing industry. It contains both side’s opinion as to what disclosures should be required for participants in the class action.

Note the issue raised by the defendant that the participants in class action suits COULD  be subject to more tax than they would benefit should the plaintiffs prevail. Specifically, if the per diems are allowed to be included in the OT base, the per diems could be taxable should the IRS seek to pursue that determination.

Those “back taxes” would potentially be more than the additional amount of pay gained from the extra OT.

2017.11.07 JOINT STATEMENT RE CONTENT OF NOTICES TO CLASS AND