Are Tax Preparers Ripping Off Pilots and Flight Attendants?

Most accountants generally don't understand or just don't bother giving airline crew employees one of the most important tax deductions they are entitled to get. The so-called per diem deduction is a method that airline pilots and flight attendants can use to write off their meals and incidental expenses (M&IE) while they are traveling for their airline employment. Unfortunately, most tax preparers don't bother with it because calculating the M&IE expenses by hand is a time-consuming process.

That leads most tax preparers who haven't heard of how simple EZPerDiem has made the per diem calculation process, to generate a simpler, less lucrative meal expense calculation (called the special rate for transportation workers) for pilots and flight attendants because it saves the tax preparer time.

Too many pilots and flight attendants are potentially giving up tens of thousands of dollars over the course of there careers because they are relying on a tax preparer to help them with their aviation-related taxes and IRS Form 2106 Deductions. Airline pilot and flight attendant taxes can be complicated, and the per diem deduction is probably one of the most misunderstood, yet most lucrative airline employee business expense tax write-offs that a flight crewmember can have if they itemize.

Today, calculating a true city-by-city per diem deduction doesn't have to take a lot of time. EZPerDiem has gone though the trouble of linking 12,500 plus airports to their respective CONUS and OCONUS per diem rates so you can quickly generate your per diem deduction online, print the results, and hand them right to your tax preparer so he or she doesn't have to bother with it. Here is an easy way to tell if your tax preparer is calculating the more lucrative city-by-city deduction or gypping you: If your tax preparer does not ask where and when you had layovers during the tax year, you are being ripped off, cheated, shorted; whatever you want to call it, the bottom line is you could be getting back significantly more money.

Why does this tell me I am being shorted? Because to properly calculate the per diem deduction it is necessary to know where you stayed AND when you stayed their. You can see an example of this by looking at the per diem rates for Toronto, Canada. Notice that the seasonal start and seasonal end dates as well as the effective and expiration dates all have different rates associated with them. In other words, the per diem rates change throughout the tax year. If your tax preparer simply asks how many overnights you had during the tax year without needing to know when, you are not getting your money's worth.

EZPerDiem is all about providing flight crewmembers with a simple way to accomplish something that once was complicated and time-consuming, at an affordable price. When a flight crewmember uses EZPerDiem to calculate their M&IE deduction, both the city-by-city and special rate for transportation workers per diem deductions are calculated simultaneously so the flight crewmember gets the highest per diem deduction allowed. When it comes to airline pilot taxes and flight attendant taxes, EZPerDiem is the best of both worlds; airline pilots and flight attendants can still use their favorite tax preparer that knows their financial situation inside and out, without sacrificing the lucrative benefits of the per diem deduction.