Per Diems 2019

[cuban]

On 10/31/2019 at 4:09 PM, TopFuel said:

I thought a per diem was meant to "top up", what you would already be spending at home to eat....because you were away from home, thus not cooking in your kitchen, but rather having to eat at a restaurant. 

So $20 breakfast, $20 lunch, and $50 dinner....while complaining, kind of sounds like you are expecting the company to be paying for your entire meal while you are working, instead of making up the "difference" of not being at home, or in a normal job where you eat breakfast at home, pack a lunch, and go home for dinner.

Am I missing something? 

 

 

You are maliciously  misinterpreting in order to justify making money off crew meals .Cheap.             

Had to edit ; So, a government worker supplements their “ home cooked meals “ while away from home with 120 $ and a engineer or a pilot has to supplement with 50$ . In the past there was an instance where the top brass for a publicly traded company ,along with the tech support and other admin support were getting 110 a day,while the operational staff was getting 50.  What kind of differential supplementing is that?  Anyways, the supplementing argument is BS.

Edited November 10, 2019 by cuban
More to say about it.

[TopFuel]

I am not questioning the amounts, being a conversation. That is wide open, and why the government sets rates. This topic is not limited to aviation (pretty small sector), but all aspects of people who "work away from home"! 

What I am questioning, is the thought process of people expecting their per diem to cover every bit of food (and beer) that they eat, and the cell phone, and on and on.

I am not an employer or even a manager. I do agree that there are companies that do not have high enough per diems, or that are not meeting government numbers, but I also questions some peoples concept of per diems. 

[cuban]

3 hours ago, TopFuel said:

I am not questioning the amounts, being a conversation. That is wide open, and why the government sets rates. This topic is not limited to aviation (pretty small sector), but all aspects of people who "work away from home"! 

What I am questioning, is the thought process of people expecting their per diem to cover every bit of food (and beer) that they eat, and the cell phone, and on and on.

I am not an employer or even a manager. I do agree that there are companies that do not have high enough per diems, or that are not meeting government numbers, but I also questions some peoples concept of per diems. 

I am yet to see anyone that asked for their beer to be covered by per diems. As for the cell phone , why would  you make long distance calls concerning company business as in ; maintenance,crew changes and so on , on your own dime? Usually the cell phone is included in the per diem under the “ incidentals” and so should they be.

[freck]

You are going to feed me 100% on your dime if I'm away from home in some shithole that thinks a frost bitten burger is worth $25. But then again some people also think 70 grand a year is sufficient compensation to be gone for 3/4 of the year in said shitholes cuz choppers are cool.

[robottxt]

8 hours ago, freck said:

You are going to feed me 100% on your dime if I'm away from home in some shithole that thinks a frost bitten burger is worth $25. But then again some people also think 70 grand a year is sufficient compensation to be gone for 3/4 of the year in said shitholes cuz choppers are cool.

You make 70 grand?

[Heliian]

8 hours ago, freck said:

You are going to feed me 100% on your dime if I'm away from home in some shithole that thinks a frost bitten burger is worth $25. But then again some people also think 70 grand a year is sufficient compensation to be gone for 3/4 of the year in said shitholes cuz choppers are cool.

Well, if you worked a full year it'd be almost 100 grand.  All the places I worked had extra allowances for more remote or expensive locales, the per diem was a base amount. 

[R0T0R]

A lot of the HAC companies are part of that organization in order to put their wallets ahead of their employees. Can’t tell you how many times I heard “industry standard” (that they wrote) to justify paying the same prices as 15 years ago. Bunch of crooks. 

[wcobra]

Well, helicopters are cool!  Working on them is cool!  Flying them is cool!  Some of the places I've worked were/are cool, and some down right cold! 

It's a challenging industry with lots of good, some bad, some hard, some easy; some good companies and some not so good.  I know things can always be better (and have experienced it too), but I / we accept the terms of our employment when we sign up/join a company or accept an assignment, wherever in the world it may be.  Ya I know some pilots think they are worse off than everyone else, but many enjoy the career, with it's relative challenges; likely some AME's as well.

I do expect to be paid well for what I do, and have my expenses covered when away from base/home which has been the case throughout over 40 years in this game (relative to the times at the time).  As a pretty good AME (maybe even an excellent one), I never did get paid what the heavy duty mechanics did/do, or what others may get, but it was alright and I was able to provide for / raise my family by honestly working this game, but it did come with a lot of sacrifice too (mostly loss of family time which I tried to maximize when back home).  My Son chose to go heavy duty (good choice for him) and makes a lot more money than I ever did, but not without lots of challenges, drama, cutbacks, loss of benefits, etc (due to the times … sound familiar?).  Every career has it's challenges and rewards; it's up to us to find contentment/balance and work to improve things or perhaps move along to that so called better job/career (grass is always greener).

Other than the long periods away from my Family, I would still chose to do it all over again and still have fun doing it ☺️.

And yes, although many changes over the years … I'm still in the industry 🙂.

 

[GrayHorizons]

pretty soon the minimum wage to survive will surpass what the entry level people in our industry start at.

 

Im not sure how this per diem affects me in the big picture. I contract under my own company, I give all my receipts to my accountant. I believe I claim $51 a day while away from home working. But seeing that higher number published makes me think  shouldn't be doing only $51?? I suppose I should talk to my accountant more.

[xrkyle]

4 hours ago, GrayHorizons said:

pretty soon the minimum wage to survive will surpass what the entry level people in our industry start at.

 

Im not sure how this per diem affects me in the big picture. I contract under my own company, I give all my receipts to my accountant. I believe I claim $51 a day while away from home working. But seeing that higher number published makes me think  shouldn't be doing only $51?? I suppose I should talk to my accountant more.

The $51 amount is the upper limit for tax filers using the simplified method which is what your accountant is likely claiming on your behalf. You could use the detailed method and likely claim up to the treasury board limit without much scrutiny but it is probably not cost effective to have your accountant parse through your receipts at their hourly rate to do that for you. It may not even be possible depending on how diligent you are at tracking expenses and retaining receipts and invoices to support them.