US income tax question re: commuting

[Orwell]

@Boyo_Jim

Uber requires a minimum of 1 drive per month from its drivers, so there shouldn’t be any corporate blowback about it.

I hadn’t thought about insurance, but my rideshare coverage costs me about $400 a year beyond what my regular private insurance had cost. If Saint Cad is theoretically picking up 400 passengers a year (2 each day during the week days) that amount should be easily covered.

Anyway, just an idea …

I hadn’t thought about the insurance. I did a very quick internet search and I see that my insurance company (Erie) supposedly charges $9 to $15 a month more for those who work at rideshare. That’s only $108 to $180 a year. $400 a year seems a lot, if this website is accurate: What Is Rideshare Insurance And Do You Need It? - NerdWallet

[Boyo_Jim]

My first rideshare insurrance was a rider on my State Farm policy that cost an extra $11/month. But it only covered you if less than 50% of your mileage was due to rideshare. While my time (vs my day job) was way under 50%, my miles weren’t, so I found that was inadequate.

I have Erie now, and I have well over the minimum coverage and a fairly low deductible, so it doesn’t surprise me there are cheaper alternatives.

OTOH, there are a number of states where you apparently can’t get rideshare insurance at all, and there are lots of Uber drivers who risk losing everything because of being uninsured or underinsured for Ubering.

[iamthewalrus_3]

@OldGuy

Being an Uber driver just during your commute would probably get Uber to drop you.

Driving just during commute times is exactly what Uber wants from some of their drivers.

[TSBG]

There are also ways to deduct more car-related expenses if you’re self-employed but incorporated, but my accountant handles that so I’m not qualified to explain how it works.

ETA, this is in the US.

[sbunny8]

@dtilque

What if the person needed to have their car at work because they used it for some work related purpose and, if they didn’t have that, would walk or bicycle to work? Has that ever been ruled on?

Bicycles don’t count as vehicles for commuting purposes. But I remember seeing a provision that the employer can provide bicycles to the employees and call it a business expense, without the employees having to declare it as income.

[bob_2]

And in the NHS, we could “reimburse” cyclists at a modest rate if they used a bicycle for work purposes. Reimbursed is the wrong word here - it should be “reward”.

[sbunny8]

@friedo

There is a pre-tax federal transit benefit, though. I get my monthly MetroCards with pre-tax money via TransitChek, which amounts to the same thing as deducting transit expenses.

I know your employer can reimburse you with pre-tax money for parking fees. Can they reimburse you for mileage on your personal car?

There’s another way you can deduct commuting mileage. If the company provides you with a qualified vehicle (such as a work van, dump truck, cherry picker, etc) which is either unsuited for personal errands or has been modified so as to be unsuited for personal errands, AND it has company markings on it AND it only seats two people, then the company can deduct every single mile driven on that vehicle as a business expense, including the miles driven by employees commuting to and from their homes, without calling it taxable income like you have to do with a company car.

So, if you’re self-employed, and you work at a fixed location, and your commute isn’t deductible… one solution is to get yourself a work van that only seats two people, put company markings on it, and voila, your commute is now deductible. If you aren’t self-employed, ask your employer to let you commute in one of the company work vans and reduce your pay by an amount equal to 55 cents times your commute miles times how many days you work. But this doesn’t work if it puts you below minimum wage.

But the bad news is that work vans generally get poor gas mileage.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

@Balthisar

I never would have expected workers’ comp to cover my commute, but now I’m curious. I wonder what the situation would be if you were coming or going to an off-site location. Assume you’re exempt, have an office at a particular address, but go offsite to a visit a plant that’s further away than your commute. Your employer pays mileage at IRS rates beyond your commute.

And while we’re at it, the same situation, except you’re on a month-long assignment at a remote plant. You’re driving home for the weekend, and the company is paying IRS mileage.

(1) In Florida an employee whose job involves traveling between work sites (say, a plumber) is within the course and scope of employment once he arrives at the employer’s premises or the first job site of the day. If you’re traveling directly to the first job site from home, that falls within the ambit of the coming rule. If you’re traveling to the first site after picking up your tools from the employer’s warehouse, that’s a covered injury.

(2) Traveling employees - that is, those spend long periods away from home - are generally considered to be within the course and scope of employment all the time, unless they engage in activities that are irrelevant to the employer’s interests. We had a recent Florida case in which a woman was in another city to train with her counterpart in that city, and they went clubbing together. She slipped on a drink and broke her arm. Not covered, because it wasn’t in the employer’s interest for her to go clubbing. If she’d been sitting quietly at her hotel, or even drinking at the hotel bar, she would have been covered.

[iamthewalrus_3]

@Really_Not_All_That_Bright

(1) In Florida an employee whose job involves traveling between work sites (say, a plumber) is within the course and scope of employment once he arrives at the employer’s premises or the first job site of the day. If you’re traveling directly to the first job site from home, that falls within the ambit of the coming rule. If you’re traveling to the first site after picking up your tools from the employer’s warehouse, that’s a covered injury.

In college I had a job doing network installation in (mostly new) buildings. And I remember that if we met at the office and then went to a site, I was on the clock as soon as I got to the office. If we drove directly to the site, then not until we got to the site. I remember hating the sites that we were at for many days that were ~1 hour away, since my work day got almost two hours longer with no additional compensation.

[Riemann]

@iamthewalrus_3

…since my work day got almost two hours longer with no additional compensation.

Compensation is a different matter, that’s a matter of negotiation between you and your employer. Nothing in IRS or workers’ comp regulations implies that your employer cannot pay you fairly for your time.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

@iamthewalrus_3

In college I had a job doing network installation in (mostly new) buildings. And I remember that if we met at the office and then went to a site, I was on the clock as soon as I got to the office. If we drove directly to the site, then not until we got to the site. I remember hating the sites that we were at for many days that were ~1 hour away, since my work day got almost two hours longer with no additional compensation.

Whether or not you’re on the clock does not necessarily (or even generally) dovetail with when you are “within the course and scope of employment” for other legal purposes. But yeah, that can suck. If I have to drive four hours for a 9 a.m. hearing I don’t get paid for the extra time (I’m salaried anyway), though in fairness I do make a considerable amount of money from mileage reimbursements because I drive a small car.

[Corry_El]

@Omar_Little

Tax rules are not meant to be logical.

Under the proposed corporate tax plan, export sales would not be subject to income tax, and purchases of goods and services imported from other countries would not be deductible.

The latter is actually quite logical, when correctly viewed as basically a tax on consumption. A 20% border adjusted cash flow tax on all employers plus a flat 20% tax on pay would be the same as a 20% VAT, and VAT’s are virtually always border adjusted.

It’s not a complete tangent because the reason you don’t allow deductions for getting to work (or eating lunch, or eating when you get home, that’s an expense too no?) is conceptually similar: you basically want to tax gross personal receipts, not net. The netting that’s allowed (expense of uniforms, business trips and so forth) within business ‘income’, is in order to not introduce artificial differences between the self employed and employer employed. Whereas, everybody who lives in town A and works in town B has to commute, self employed or not.

[iamthewalrus_3]

@Riemann

Compensation is a different matter, that’s a matter of negotiation between you and your employer. Nothing in IRS or workers’ comp regulations implies that your employer cannot pay you fairly for your time.

Well, sure. But such was the policy, and my negotiating position, as a kid working during the summers who didn’t even learn about this policy until a month or so in (for the first month all our jobs were pretty close), and had limited skills and limited time to line up a replacement job for the remaining bit of summer vacation, was incredibly weak.

As I recall, even with the extra commute time, the pay wasn’t bad. It was just a downgrade from what I had been getting with a short commute.

[GiantRat]

I know you can’t deduct clothing unless it’s not suitable for wear outside of work - not just that you don’t wear it outside of work, but that it’s not suitable.

Sweet. I’m going to start wearing only things that are unsuitable for work, and then claim deductions.