I thought housing was FREE

[FAMU_RN]

i am contemplating about taking an assignment with trustaff. however, the recruiter told me about 300 or 400 dollars will be deducted from my paycheck for my housing. he said, "trustaff pays for your housing for you upfront and each paycheck we will take out around 300 or 400 dollars depending on how much your housing is." i replied by saying, "i thought housing was free." he then said other companies will tell you your housing is free but it is not because they take it out of your taxes.... ?????uh....

can some one help me understand this better?

i did not think this was common for traveling agencies.

he also went into this whole ordeal of telling me the job posting is for 35.00 an hour but $21.70 of that amount is tax free and $13.30 is taxable.

can some one help me with all of this ---- the housing, taxable and non taxable rates? this is not very appealing to me..

he also said they can pay for my plane ticket but it will later be deducted from my payroll check (counted in my expenses)? :confused:is this common?

also i would to hear more feedback if you have traveled with trustaff. (i did a search on this website and read several comments:()

thank you all in advance

famu_rn

[loricatus]

I will try to explain this the best I can.

There is a certain amount of money, no matter what the company, that goes towards the traveler, after the company takes their cut (anywhere from 20-40 percent of the hourly bill rate to the hospital). This cut is their gross profit margin.

The remainder goes to the traveler and can be allocated any number of ways. Usually, an hourly rate is set based upon deducting housing, insurance, travel reimbursements, etc. For instance, if you don't take insurance, you can see a couple of dollars added to the hourly rate.

The 'free' housing isn't free. It just comes out of the the bill rate after the company took their cut. So, if you don't take company provided housing, you can take a housing stipend. This housing stipend will not be taxed if you have to maintain a primary residence elsewhere, because the IRS allows for business travel expenses not to be taxed. A travel nurse who leaves behind a primary tax residence (and continues with expenses at that primary residence while away on a travel job) is considered to have business travel, per IRS rules.

The IRS definition of business travel expenses is why you will also see a taxed and untaxed portion of your pay. In addition to the business (travel) housing issue I already mentioned, you are able to get an untaxed per diem that is called meals, housing and incidentals (look at the http://www.irs.gov for information related to business travel and lodging expenses). There are tables based on location, that specify the maximum per diem rate allowed to be untaxed. Most companies will not do the maximum allowed untaxed rate; but, they will take the daily rate of untaxed, which they determine on their own, and change it to an hourly untaxed rate, rather than a dail rate. This is usually referred to as 'tax advantage' because you (and, especially, them) will pay a lot less in taxes.

What you have to do when traveling, is find a company that has a lower profit margin. The bigger the company, the higher profit margin they need for internal costs and advertising. Everything comes out of the bill rate to the hospital, so you also have to find a company that doesn't lowball. many of the larger companies will do that to get exclusives. In turn, the traveler suffers with lower pay and poor housing.

[kateyes7]

So, is the tax advantage program good or bad? I am still so confused. Seems to me like you get paid more now, but may end up paying more when tax time comes around.