How Are You Getting Paid for Tolls?
- Thread starter ATeam
- Start date
Pass Through is indeed the correct term, but it's one applied to employees, not to independent contractors with 1099s. For an independent contractor, income is income, and the amount reimbursed for tolls, fuel, or whatever other expenses you may incur is still income. Phil's post is correct.
chefdennis
Veteran Expediter
You are right..even in a audit, info other than receipts aren't often asked for (unless you are a repeat audit
) and then you take all you can and then some...But for me its less then that $3000 number and no big deal and that is another reason why I dont bother doing the paperwork to get the reimbursement to begin with...
chefdennis
Veteran Expediter
I don't take the layover pay half the time....and most of the time i move before they offer the paid move..and i don't ask for detenion unless it just is crazy amount of time...you need me to go on ??
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No, no need. Just stamp a big "L" on your forehead and you're good to go.
If your carrier puts the toll amount on your 1099 as income you're being hit with it twice. You paid the toll of $10.00 and then $10.00 is being added to your 1099. To not write if off is adding income that you really didn't get. If the carrier adds in on your 1099 then you are okay to take the cost of the toll. It is like a bonus because the carrier adds it on the 1099.
Check with the IRS or a good accountant. It is a push if you do it this way.
This would be the correct answer. As a fleet owner, I don't do anything with tolls other than pass the gross amount of them to the drivers. Panther pays for them on a load by load basis upon receipts. I do think there is some confusion where folks are mixing employee standards with independent contractors.
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You can put some extra money in your pocket if you revisit this understanding.
"Pass through" is used in a variety of contexts. In this context, we are talking here about how sole proprietors can treat tolls as a deductible business expense; whether or not they are reimbursed by a carrier. In this context, "pass through" does not apply.
chefdennis
Veteran Expediter
Dave, my carrier doesn't add anything to my 1099 for tolls because i don't ask them to re-imburse me..they have no idea what i pay in tolls a yr because they are never figured into anything.. I claim and deduct them when i do my taxes. I pay the toll once, and i deduct it once..thats it..my carrier has no involvement at all...
The Original question was how do you handle tolls, thats how i handle them...
jaminjim
Veteran Expediter
Dispatch: Have a great load for you, pay per mile is $1.05 per mile with a $0.49 FSC. Also with $150.00 detention pay and $75.00 for tolls.
Driver: Well I really need to maximize my deductions so I'll take the per mile pay and $0.10 fuel charge. I need to skip the detention pay though, I'll stay in a hotel in order to get some deductions to offset that FSC that I'm going to take. Tolls..... Fooorgetaboutit.
Dispatcher, laughs and has a new go to guy.
Driver: Well I really need to maximize my deductions so I'll take the per mile pay and $0.10 fuel charge. I need to skip the detention pay though, I'll stay in a hotel in order to get some deductions to offset that FSC that I'm going to take. Tolls..... Fooorgetaboutit.
Dispatcher, laughs and has a new go to guy.
chefdennis
Veteran Expediter
No, no need. Just stamp a big "L" on your forehead and you're good to go.
I don't ask for "Extra Stop " pay if i have to go to another location to pickup if the dispatch address is wrong either...I don't ask for mulituple stop pay if I pick up a "extra piece of freight at a shippers and drop it "is on the way"..(most times dispatch takes care of this, but there has been times i have done it and not asked to be paid....
You load 1 drivers might find it interesting that about a yr ago another driver and i told John to drop the pay over pay for the 1st 24 hrs...he didn't go for it.....
As i said, just another reason I'll never be rich...
chefdennis
Veteran Expediter
OVM, I just re-read your post..Are you 1st paying the tolls as we all do, then getting re-imbursed and then taking the deduction also???? That i am not doing..I don't ask for the reimbursement at all....
CharlesD
Expert Expediter
That's why I do things the way I do, just bidding a bit higher on the load and letting the driver pay his own tolls. I don't separate it out and call it anything other than pay. Money's money. I'm not the one having to go through the toll booths, so the driver might as well be able to get the deduction.
so to make it simple, if you pay for tolls and your carrier reimburses them and adds them to the gross of your 1099. take them as a tax deduction to offset the the extra income reported.
isnt that basically what we are saying.
isnt that basically what we are saying.
The reason dispatch takes care of that most of the time is because wrong addresses, stopoffs, detention and a whole host of other things (including even tolls in many cases) are services the customer expects, and is expected, to pay for. Load 1 doesn't pay for these things (in the vast majority of cases), the customer does. You aren't doing Load 1 any favors by not having the customer pay for your services.
These services, like multiple stops (including wrong addresses), detention, debris removal, hand load and unload, they are all billable throughout the trucking industry, including expediting. In some cases, even more so in expediting. This isn't a community service or a charitable enterprise. It may be that you were with a carrier previously who failed to charge the customer for these services, or, and I'm not making any accusations where, that they charged for them but failed to pass them along to you (either because they didn't want to, or because you failed to ask for it, which is the case with more than one carrier I know), so you aren't used to seeing them or aren't aware that it's standard in the industry or something. I dunno.
So proudly proclaiming that you never ask for compensation for billable services really isn't a badge of honor.
Now, empty move money and layover pay, that's another thing altogether. Those come directly from the carrier, and I am grateful for both. Tolls, too, for that matter.
That's because John knows his business model and his goals better than you do and he wasn't blinded by the glare off the shiny brown spots on your noses.
Yes, precisely.
chefdennis
Veteran Expediter
The reason dispatch takes care of that most of the time is because wrong addresses, stopoffs, detention and a whole host of other things (including even tolls in many cases) are services the customer expects, and is expected, to pay for. Load 1 doesn't pay for these things (in the vast majority of cases), the customer does. You aren't doing Load 1 any favors by not having the customer pay for your services.
These services, like multiple stops (including wrong addresses), detention, debris removal, hand load and unload, they are all billable throughout the trucking industry, including expediting. In some cases, even more so in expediting. This isn't a community service or a charitable enterprise. It may be that you were with a carrier previously who failed to charge the customer for these services, or, and I'm not making any accusations where, that they charged for them but failed to pass them along to you (either because they didn't want to, or because you failed to ask for it, which is the case with more than one carrier I know), so you aren't used to seeing them or aren't aware that it's standard in the industry or something. I dunno.
So proudly proclaiming that you never ask for compensation for billable services really isn't a badge of honor.
Now, empty move money and layover pay, that's another thing altogether. Those come directly from the carrier, and I am grateful for both. Tolls, too, for that matter.
That's because John knows his business model and his goals better than you do and he wasn't blinded by the glare off the shiny brown spots on your noses.
Yes, precisely.
So...If it were to become excessive, then id start asking for compensation, but it isn't. To me those thing are just a fact of doing business...not abig deal and i don't see the need to be compensated for them...
Oh and as for hand unloading, only if the customer is a jerk about it, then ill call and get paid, other then that, nope.....
And I'll continue to do as i do now....
Oh and it has nothing to do with "Brown nosing", its how i did it at my previous carrier also, never put in for any of it, never called to ask for any of it....well there was no "layover pay"...which is the industry std....and yes it is appreciated, but not really neccessary, because as we all point out to newbies, "sitting and waiting is part of the deal"......
Oh and for what it is worth, my wife thinks i am nuts also...she would agree with you...but i ain't changed it for her either...
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... but not really neccessary, because as we all point out to newbies, "sitting and waiting is part of the deal"......
Let's be clear about what "we all point out to newbies."
Sitting and waiting is part of the deal for this expediter team when Diane and I have delivered a load and are next waiting for a load offer to come in. Sitting and waiting when the shipper or consignee is responsible for the sitting and waiting is called detention time.
Detention time is legitimately charged to the party that detains your truck because by detaining you, the shipper or consignee is preventing you from being available to serve another paying customer.