The Offer
$
/ yr
$
/ hr
$
$
mi
Refine your answer Job length, taxes, getting there, bonuses, 401(k), food and household
Plenty of contractors pay all seven if you work every scheduled day. Worth asking.
$
months
Decides whether the per diem is tax-free or just more wages.
weeks
Lodging
$
A flat allowance with no expense report is a non-accountable plan — it lands on your W-2 as wages.
Getting there
$
/ month
mi each way
days
Bonuses and allowances
$
%
$
%
Signing or completion. Paid once, not every year.
$
%
$
%
$
%
$
%
Food and household
$
/ day
$
/ day
$
Fine tuning
/ week
Doesn’t change a salaried dollar. Fill it in to see what the package comes to per hour.
/ week
Hours past 40 price at time and a half, no higher. If your shop pays double time, staying home is worth a little more than this shows.
%
A rough blended rate, federal and state together. An estimate, not a return.
Your numbers stay on your phone. Nothing is sent to us. Clear my numbers
Worth taking?
Yes.
Health coverage and paid time off aren’t counted — if one side has them and the other doesn’t, weigh that yourself.
What you make now optional
$
/ hr
$
/ yr
The pay you’d be walking away from.
% 401(k)
What that job puts in your 401(k), if anything.
The money
Annual package
$0
What you keep
$0
Ahead of staying home
$0
Taking the job
| Money in | $0 |
| Straight time | $0 |
| Overtime | $0 |
| Per diem | $0 |
| Housing allowance | $0 |
| Truck allowance | $0 |
| Travel premium | $0 |
| Bonus | $0 |
| Less tax | $0 |
| Costs | $0 |
| Lodging | $0 |
| Food and incidentals | $0 |
| Driving | $0 |
| The daily commute | $0 |
| You clear | $0 |
Staying home per week
| You clear | $0 |
| Local wages, after tax |
| Taking the job puts you ahead | $0 |
What else it tells you
| Road burn rate | $0 |
| What it costs you just to be there, per day away. | |
| Per diem you actually keep | $0 |
| True hourly | $0 |
| Hours you’re actually giving up | 0 |
| Nights in your own bed | 0 |
Your per diem is being treated as taxable here. It’s only tax-free when you keep a real home and pay to live away from it — and an assignment expected to run past a year is indefinite, taxable from day one. IRS Pub. 463 and Topic 511. Ask a CPA who knows travelers before you sign.
Check the federal rate for the county you’ll be working in.
Anything above that county’s rate lands on your
W-2 as wages, no matter how solid your tax home is. Most of the country is $113 a day for
lodging, but some counties run well over that, especially in peak season. Two minutes on
GSA’s lookup.
That tax rate is doing a lot of work.
It’s the Effective tax rate box under Fine tuning.
A rate set for a middle income makes a big package look better than it is.
On salary, the hours are free to them. Sixty and forty pay the same, so nothing above moves when you work longer. Exempt salaried work draws no overtime and no overtime deduction. If you’re salaried non-exempt and you do get overtime, run it hourly instead.
- Only the half of time-and-a-half counts, not the whole overtime hour.
- It doesn’t touch Social Security, Medicare or state tax. Your check doesn’t change; your refund does.
- If your agreement pays overtime after 8 hours in a day, those hours don’t qualify — the deduction only covers hours past 40 in a week.