travel nursing pay

[witty]

Let's see if I do this right.

I'm a travel nurse and I'm concerned about taxable and untaxable pay. I've been in positions where they pay with a small base rate such as $13/hr taxable. But I also receive another $25/hr untaxed. Is this ok by the IRS? Now I only receive this pay up to my 40 hours/week. With overtime I only receive time and a half of the $13. The untaxed portion up to 40hours a week is the most I can receive. Has anyone else been paid like this and if so, what do you do come tax time?

-witty

[kdblueey]

You should go to the 'travel nurses' forum through allnurses.com. I am a new traveler, so these forums are very helpful. Hope this helps.

[travelnurse229]

It's not exactly "tax-free". It is non taxable reimbursement for meals and housing. The whole purpose of this money is to pay for your expenses while away from your home. Since you are duplicating expenses the IRS and feds alow this.

Are there nurses who accept the taxable money and stay with family and friends pocketing huge $$. Sure there are. I've never heard of anyone getting caught or audited however this is technically against the purpose of the non taxable reimbursement.

The whole reason why we travlellers make decent $$ is due to the low hourly and the high non tax reimbursement. However, with this low hourly taxable it makes it pointless to work OT. However, my recruiter offers me Double Time instead of just time and a half so I work it when it's available.

Hope this helps you a bit.

[suzanne4, RN]

This is where you may be wrong, if the government audits you, you need to prove that your pay was reasonable for that area and similar to what other nurses in that area are receiving. Otherwise, you can be in for a very large bill. And the only way that you can take the deduction for housing and it is tax free is if you have a tax home someplace else, or it is not tax exempt.

This is how business owners get into trouble as well, not paying themselves what is customary in the area and that means less taxes for them, but if audited, they need to pay the difference in taxes that is owed.

For anyone getting $13 as a base rate for a travel nurse assignment as an RN, there are all types of red flags that go up and fast. That is not a reasonable salary by any means in any part of the US. It also means that your agency is taking advantage of you in a very big way.

You are permitted the per diem for that part of the country to cover your expenses while you are away from home, just as if you were a busniess person and had to work away from home for a few weeks at a time, same deductions are available to you. Your pay should still be customary for what that area is, not decreased because you have taken a travel assignment and then what is given to you for your housing has to be in the range for that area.

Sure, if you are the Bay Area, housing is much more expensive and so the per diem is higher than for many other areas as costs are higher on everything. If you are in a smalll town in the south, there is no reason that the apt is costing $2000 per month plus other living expenses, that also sends up a red flag to the government all the way around.

Any deduction has to be reasonable, but have never seen any travel nurse working for that amount of money. The rest is just going to your agency, they are not helping you in anyway at all, but fattening their pockets.