When you work as a traveling nurse or health professional, you make your living away from many of your family and friends. You have two residences to maintain when you travel - the one you call your "home away from home" where you rest your head after a long shift at the hospital and the one you call your "home" where you live when you're not on the road. The IRS calls your "home" your tax home or permanent tax residence.
You know that it can get very costly to maintain two homes while traveling and earning a living; the IRS recognized this dilemma with many people and set up a national plan to assist traveling professionals. The government researched and developed an extensive listing of daily travel reimbursement rates that estimate the average food and housing costs for US cities and metropolitan areas. With our Tax Advantage Plan, we blend these tax-free rates into your final pay package to increase your weekly "take home" pay.
To participate in the tax advantage plan, you must meet some simple qualifications established by the government:
- You must have a permanent tax residence or tax home - a residence where you usually live and pay taxes. Without a tax home, the IRS would consider you an "itinerant worker" for tax purposes and therefore, ineligible to deduct travel living expenses.
- Your permanent tax residence must be different from and a certain distance from the location of your travel assignment. You must live in your temporary housing location during your travel assignment; working near your tax home and returning there from shifts would disqualify you for the plan.
- Your travel assignment must be less than one year in length. You may have multiple travel assignments and extensions, but each original assignment must be less than a year.
- You must complete and keep on file with Holsman the Permanent Tax Residence Notification form to declare the above information for your personnel record.
You should direct any tax questions or requests for information on your specific situation to your personal tax advisor. You may find more information about tax guidelines for travel healthcare professionals at websites for the IRS or Kobaly, the Travel Nurse Tax Specialist.
Since you now have all the information about the taxes and regulations around our Tax Advantage Plan, here is a simple example to show you the advantage part of the plan. The example below is solely for demonstration purposes and is only an estimate.
| |
Tax Advantage Plan |
Standard Taxable Plan |
| Total Hourly Pay Rate |
$40.00 |
$40.00 |
| Taxable portion of Hourly Rate |
$14.60 |
$40.00 |
| Non-taxable portion of Hourly Rate |
$25.40 |
$0.00 |
 |
| Hours Per Week |
36 |
36 |
| Gross Weekly Total Pay |
$1440.00 |
$1440.00 |
| Gross Weekly Taxable Pay |
$525.60 |
$1440.00 |
| Total Tax at 28% rate |
$147.17 |
$403.20 |
| Estimated Weekly Net Pay |
$1292.83 |
$1036.80 |
|
| Weekly "Tax Advantage" |
$256.03 |
|
| Tax Advantage for a 13-week assignment |
$3,328.39 |
|
| Annual Tax Advantage |
$13,313.56 |
|
Call now to speak with your recruiter about specific pay plan arrangements with different pay rates and hourly guarantees for your assignments.
