Two 13-week travel assignments, at once - feasible?

NedRN · Jul 24, 2019

Nope, and it is nutty for several reasons. First, you are better off financially and sanity wise to take rapid response type of jobs where you can work seven days a week if you want. Overtime instead of 72 or 84 hours of straight time. Second, the logistics would be crazy. Schedules are seldom truly fixed for travelers, and all contracts allow changes. Finding two travel assignments that offer fixed and compatible schedules would be, umm, challenging. Third, many contracts have specific language requiring that it be your only job. Fourth, travelers who are working away from home have tax advantages. Your second contract would have to be fully taxed, reducing your take home pay. No double dipping.

Even if you find such compatible contracts, illness on your part or a staff member that requires you to step in may get you terminated from both jobs. If you must do something this bizarre, better to work in an area that has a lot of local agency per diem to fill in your days off. Those shift commitments are easy to cancel. That is doable, and I do meet travelers with so much excess energy that they do just this. Often they take several back to back contracts in the same area, because it would be a pain to sign up for per diem in a new area every three months. But generally, per diem will pay less than your total hourly compensation for travel contracts so it seems nutty to me. I've never been tempted to work more and take a pay cut (yes, your gross pay will still be more).

Sunnysandy · Jul 24, 2019

OK. Two question. Why would the 2nd contract be fully taxed if home is still working away from home? How do you find per diem agencies?

NedRN · Jul 24, 2019

Why can't you double dip? Would it be legal to collect two person's welfare checks? The why is irrelevant anyway, it is the law. The workaround is to travel with an unrelated traveler and split things. If you are married, collecting two housing stipends would be disallowed in an audit because you already share housing.

How to find per diem agencies? Google. Yellow pages if they still exist. Ask around the hospital where you are working. Typically you need a large urban area. Los Angeles, the Bay area, Chicago, DC/VA/Baltimore all have healthy per diem that I know of personally.

Sunnysandy · Jul 25, 2019

Thanks NedRN. By why i meant "what's there reason behind it", not a "how come" complain. Thanks for explaining. Googling for information on this part of the law, but I can't find anything. I am sure I'm phrasing it wrong. Any idea how I should word it?

Are per diem agencies the the same as regular 13-week assignment agencies? Or are they agencies that specialize in per diem?

NedRN · Jul 25, 2019

Seriously? Common sense will tell you you can't double dip. The underlying laws and regulations are complex. You can do a few hours of reading about them on PanTravelers and TravelTax. Irrelevant anyway as you will not be able to work two concurrent assignments.

But let me break it down a little here. The housing stipend is actually a "reimbursement" for an expense. If you take two reimbursements for the same exact expense... get the picture?

Agencies can do both. But you want a national agency for travel, and a local agency for per diem. The same agency for both will not employ you for both because of overtime laws, they would lose money on paying you 40 hours of overtime when they can only bill flat time.

Sunnysandy · Jul 25, 2019

3 minutes ago, NedRN said:
Seriously? Common sense will tell you you can't double dip.

Wow. It's unfortunate that your knowledge is buried under that character.

WanderingWilder, ASN · Jul 25, 2019

Stipends are tax free because it pays for housing, the second stipend wouldn't be paying for your housing (since the housing is already paid for by the first stipend) which is why it isn't tax free.

NedRN · Jul 25, 2019

9 hours ago, Sunnysandy said:
Wow. It's unfortunate that your knowledge is buried under that character.

I take it you haven't traveled before based on your questions, repeated after I answered them thoroughly. I was nice (not sure why you would be offended at "common sense" and double dipping) and helpful and you have a surprise coming your way if you have never traveled before. You don't get coddled (typically) like you might be used to as a staff nurse, or even on this rather well behaved (typically) forum. It's harsh out here and expectations of travelers are high. Are you really ready? Even the internet has you ruffled. A single snide comment to anyone on a travel assignment can lead to termination.

Sunnysandy · Jul 29, 2019

On 7/26/2019 at 2:56 AM, WanderingWilder said:
Stipends are tax free because it pays for housing, the second stipend wouldn't be paying for your housing (since the housing is already paid for by the first stipend) which is why it isn't tax free.

Aha! Got it now! Awesome! Thanks!

Would the 2nd assignment being a traveling distance from the first one make a difference?

NedRN · Jul 29, 2019

If you have a tax home you haven't abandoned and are working away from home on business, and the nature of the job requires that you have local accommodation to rest between shifts (or other considerations like callback time), then that accommodation is tax deductible. There is no limit on how many such accommodations you might have (picture a sales person with multiple cities to visit), but they don't normally overlap.

In the almost impossible scenario where you take two concurrent travel assignments in which you cannot commute from one to the other, and you don't simply stay at hotels for the nights needed in the two locations, you might be able to justify having two apartments if the cost is less than the hotel rooms, but not if it is more. That is the only way you might be able to justify having two housing stipends and not paying tax on either. But your out of pocket will be significantly higher, erasing any benefits (the costs will be higher than the taxes would have been).

You do have to keep and hold housing receipts to prove in an audit that you do have duplicated costs at the remote site and your tax home.

Besides housing, the other major benefit of travel is tax free per diems (known as M&IE by the IRS). As the name suggests, these are paid daily like housing and are significant. Under no circumstances could these overlap between two concurrent assignments, again making this whole discussion an exercise in futility.

You do know you have to keep up a permanent residence as well? If not, this whole thing is moot as all compensation is taxable, not even tax free housing once.

RN/WI, ADN, BSN, MSN, RN, APRN · Aug 5, 2019

Why ?! It’s not possible and even if it was it would be illegal. But first of all you would make more working one and collecting overtime for more hours you would stick into the second job. Did you decide to travel?