Financial benefits of traveling

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Hi Everyone! I am enjoying reading all the posts on traveling. I plan to travel in one year and want to gather as much information as I can on the lifestyle. As a nurse with 25+ years experience, I don't think I'll be making much more as a traveler than I do at my current job. However, it seems like the tax write-offs and housing stipend may make a big difference at tax time. (I plan to live with my family and forgo the free housing offered by agency.) Where can I go to find out the tax write offs and all the fiancial pros and cons of travel nursing? Any advice would be appreciated.

Katie

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Specializes in NICU,MB,Lact.Consultant, L/D.

Here is a place to go for answers to some of your questions. Joe is great and you can email him with any question - he will respond.

FLOBRN

TavelTax: Tax preparation for travel nurses and other traveling medical and mobile professionals

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I was about to post asking about information re: taxes and travelling. Thanks for the website -- I'll check it out.

I moved from the east coast back to the midwest in August 2006 -- well, I list my daughter's address in the midwest as my permanent mailing address, although I've only stayed a few weeks here all in all. I took a travel position Sept - mid Dec 2006 in the southwest. I want to deduct my moving expenses from the east coast on my taxes. I am not sure what of my travel RN expenses, if any, I can deduct. More than half of my contract pay is non-taxed. I will travel again in a few weeks, probably to coastal California, where I am tentatively planning on staying for a good while, both working and not, until I begin clinicals. So, I presume I should file to pay midwest state taxes for my "official" time here in 2006 -- 5 months. I may pay for a mailbox service, however, that will forward my mail for a fee, so that my daughter doesn't have to do that again, but the closest place is across the nearby state border. My belongings are all in storage in another state. So where's "home?" A home state? My daughter's apartment is the closest I can come up with ... where to file my taxes? This all sounds pretty crazy ... but actually travel nursing is easiest right now because it's so much easier to get a travel job than find an apt, deal for months waiting for HR depts to get back to me to hire me for a job I won't make enough to support myself and go to school with, and which I'll be quitting in a few months anyway when I start clinicals!!!

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Specializes in NICU,MB,Lact.Consultant, L/D.

Hi

Joe will be able to answer all your questions on what and where a tax home is. I don't know if you go to the delphi forums, travel nurse and therapists boards but they have a good tax questions section on the No Recruiting boards.

FLOBRN

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Hi Everyone! I am enjoying reading all the posts on traveling. I plan to travel in one year and want to gather as much information as I can on the lifestyle. As a nurse with 25+ years experience, I don't think I'll be making much more as a traveler than I do at my current job. However, it seems like the tax write-offs and housing stipend may make a big difference at tax time. (I plan to live with my family and forgo the free housing offered by agency.) Where can I go to find out the tax write offs and all the fiancial pros and cons of travel nursing? Any advice would be appreciated.

Katie

If you are going to be living with your family, then you will not be 50 miles or greater from your tax home. That is what you need to be doing to get the perks of travel. The housing stipend will not be tax free for you. Be very careful with that.

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Thanks for the tip, FloBRN! And thanks for all the information. Suzanne--actually my tax home will be in Illinois where I've lived the past 30 years. I was looking seriously into travel in order to be available to help my aging parents who live in CA. My husband will join me after he retires. But I will still be working in IL also, as my children are there as well as my house. So this should work, shouldn't it?

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FLOBRN -- Just checked out that webside. Looks like it will be a good one!

Thanks again!

KatieGlo

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Specializes in ICU's,TELE,MED- SURG.
Hi Everyone! I am enjoying reading all the posts on traveling. I plan to travel in one year and want to gather as much information as I can on the lifestyle. As a nurse with 25+ years experience, I don't think I'll be making much more as a traveler than I do at my current job. However, it seems like the tax write-offs and housing stipend may make a big difference at tax time. (I plan to live with my family and forgo the free housing offered by agency.) Where can I go to find out the tax write offs and all the fiancial pros and cons of travel nursing? Any advice would be appreciated.

Katie

I've been a Nurse for 28 yrs. I've been traveling on and off for 6 yrs. You'd be surprised that you can make far, far more money as a contract local agency Nurse vs. traveling with m's and i's by far. There is a huge change that has taken place in travel nursing and that change is pay. Some salaries offered are absolutely insulting to Nurses with experience. I can do better on staff here in Fl. with all the write offs put together.

Truthfully, the money is in the local agency contracts and what you should think about is doing this and supplying your oen housing and getting familiar with what can or can't be a write off with a good CPA.

For example, there is a standard table for per diems. There are tables for meals for example. Much easier to use for your tax preparer by far. As for lodging, do it yourself. Keep your receipts and give them to your Accountant at tax time. If you ship your car because the State you want to go to is way too far for you to drive, the shipping is also a write off so again I say keep your receipts. All your insurances are also against your taxes like liability,medical/dental, lots of things including car insurance and oil changes,repairs and tires for ex. Gasoline is calculated by mileage to and from work and also if you drove to and from the assignment.

Right now, my local agency job is paying me top pay and I'm working ot on most weeks. I'm home, no worries about a thing and it feels good to be home. I love to travel and then I love to return home. If I work out of State for even one contract, I can write off a ton of stuff which always makes it worth the trouble.

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Specializes in Pain Management, RN experience was in ER.

So, I guess I'm confused. If I pick a traveling agency and choose to have everything taxed, will I owe anything at the end of the year :S

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thanks, LadyNASDAQ! I'll look into agency nursing. I'm glad I have a year to figure all this out before taking the leap!

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