Dear Sir/madam

I am self incorporated ( S corporation). I do commute to work for more than 70 miles one way..Should I be able to take Per diem ( it comes to around $64.00), or is it necessary that I should be staying overnight at the place which I commute to get per diem...


Your advice on this is appreciated.


Thanks
Kanaiya.

I'd say it depends on the arrangement you have with the individual/company you are performing a service for. If per diem is in the contract/arrangement you made with them, then fine.

I work for state government. We are allowed to charge mileage when we travel for business even if we do not spend the night. We are not allowed to charge mileage for commuting and I believe that is the generally accepted practice.

One thing that would probably help clear this up is if you're actually being paid per dium by the clients. Or are you just referring to what you have figured out as your costs for the commute? The latter is commuting miles, not per dium.

I'm not a tax expert and you may want to throw this over the way of the tax forum, but as a general rule you can't take commuting miles to get to a job. You can count mileage for getting from one client/job to another, or to get from your work place to a client. i.e. do you have an office at home that you work out of? If so, then your commute is actually mileage from your work place to a client. That's a different thing. Another thing throwing a monkey wrench into this is are you paying money out of your company (i.e. expense on the company's books) and paying it to yourself as personal money for the mileage (like a reimbursement)?

Like I said, I'm not a tax expert. I do some self-employment work and I know how to handle it for my own stuff. But the questions I proposed above would be useful information for someone else to maybe answer this better.