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Are you looking around for a new job? Or have you ever wondered how much a truck operator earns? If the adverts in the truckers’ magazines are to be believed, it is easy to get a driving job paying $100,000 a year as an owner driver.

This may be true, but it is definite that you can make a good living by owning and operating your own truck. There are several valid reasons for this. There is a deteriorating shortage of people who are prepared to drive long distances and stay away from home for a night or more and yet more goods are being imported and so have to be distributed from docks to distribution depots.

Many owner drivers enjoy the lifestyle of being their own boss and not having anyone breathing down their neck. Owner drivers sometimes take their spouse or their dog on trips with them and a modern cab is more like a small caravan that a car.

There are three main types of driving job available in the truck driving industry:

The first is the owner driver or owner operator. This type of operator owns his or her own tractor – the cab part that pulls the trailer.This driver is frequently contracted to a haulage firm and is paid per mile and is at least partially accountable for fuel and repair bills. It is usually the highest paying trucking alternative.

The second is the company operator. A company driver does not own his or her own truck and will normally get a wage based on hours or miles. A company operator typically does not have the same level of control over his wages that an owner driver has.

The third sort is the independent trucker. The independent trucker is fundamentally a mini haulage company. He or she has to find the loads, deliver them, make sure he gets paid, repair the wagon and everything else that a boss has to do, but without the corporate support and regular loads that an owner operator has from his haulage company.

If you are interested in this kind of business, the first thing you will need is a Commercial Drivers License (CDL) in the USA or Heavy Goods Vehicle (HGV) License in the UK.

Most truck drivers attend a truck driving school where they will be given intensive training on how to drive a semi, as the tractor-cum-cab is known as. Training will be given on driving and the written part of the state test. After graduating from the driving school, you will be able to apply for your CDL or HGV.

Alternatively, you may be able to get in with a large haulage company that runs its own in-house training school. This is better still as it may guarantee you a job with that company for a while and that will help you establish a financial history should you want finance to buy your own truck later.

Once you are officially authorized, you can rely on your training school to help you get a job, you could phone around, look on the Internet or go and get one of those truckers’ magazines where they advertise jobs at $100,000 per annum.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article writes on lots of subjects, but is currently involved with truck sat nav systems. If you would like to know more, please go to our website at Laser Temperature Gun.

Submitting one’s tax papers are a necessary chore for many people, but for more people, they are a means of reducing the money that they owe the state. It depends on which country you come from. In some countries, people pay no tax until the end of the tax year, in others, workers pay a fixed rate, say 25%, of everything they earn, but settle up with the government at the end of the fiscal year.

They settle up by submitting their tax returns, which basically means claiming tax relief for expenses that they have incurred in the completion of their work. It is the difference between what an employed person earns using the boss’ tools and a self-employed person earns using their own equipment. After all, a boss would claim for every shovel that employees use, so why should a self-employed person have to pay for his own shovel?

The same is true of owner operator truck drivers. So what are the kind of operating costs that an owner operator truck driver can claim for?

First and foremost is the depreciation of the value of the truck itself. The rate at which this is permitted varies from country to country, but in many it is 25% of the value of that truck per year, based on the cost price. You will also be able to deduct 100% of the interest charges on the loan that you took out to buy the truck.

This can get quite tricky if you want to sell the vehicle before it can be called ‘written off’ in the terms of the law. However, whatever you get for the vehicle has to be considered as income after the truck has been written off.

You will have to take advice on this topic because it is very complicated, varying from country to country. The main point is that you are not allowed to deduct the full payments for the truck, only the interest.

Another major cost that drivers can claim back are road charges. If you have to pay anything to stay on the road, you are allowed to off-set that against your earnings. The same goes for cleaning, washing and maintaining the vehicle, but you must retain all the bills.

No tax man will believe you without them. Meals and over-night lodgings are also tax-deductible, but again, receipts are an absolute essential.

Many people think that they can claim for clothing, but this is a difficult issue. You are only allowed to claim for working clothing that can only be utilized wholly and exclusively for work. Overalls are a good case in point, as are steel toe-capped boots or wellingtons. A sleeping bag is dubious.

Fines or traffic tickets are not deductible, because they were your responsibility. Likewise solicitors’ fees fighting them – unless you win. However, if you fight and lose, you may incur penalties from the tax office. Sometimes it is simpler, and cheaper, to just pay up, unless it endangers your driving license.

Fuel bills are a substantial part of most drivers’ expenses, so it essential to keep a close eye on those bills. It is a good idea to pay for fuel with a fuel card because then you have a permanent, re-retrievable record of them.

Mobile phones, sat nav and laptops are necessary to many drivers, but authorities take a particular view on them. Some allow 100% deduction, others allow only 25-50%, because they assert that they can be used for purposes non-essential to carrying out your job. Calls on the cell phone may have to be justified for similar motives.

You may get away with claiming for air-con and even a refrigerator to keep your food cool or a special ergonomic seat for your back, but do not count on it.

In general, the allowances for owner operator truck drivers are reasonable, but you cannot condemn the authorities for questioning some of the outrageous claims that some drivers make.

Owen Jones, the author of this article writes on various subjects, but is at present concerned with truck sat nav systems. If you would like to know more, please go to our website at Laser Temperature Gun.

Owner truck drivers have the same basic rights as any business owner, which means that they are permitted to deduct their operating costs from their earnings. The devil is in the detail. Every business operates on the same essential guidelines, but within that framework, every type of business is different.

A large proportion of non-business people do not understand how this works and to be honest, it does work differently in different countries. Here is a simple example: if you earn 400 and 100 is expenses and the tax rate is 25%, you will still pay tax: 400 earnings – 100 expenses = 300 profit x 25% tax rate = 75 tax.

Not as a lot of people think: 400 earnings x 25% tax rate = 100 tax – 100 expenses = zero tax.

With no expenses, the tax bill would have been: 400 earnings x 25% tax rate = 100 tax

Therefore, in this instance, you still need to pay for 75% of your expenses yourself. Clearly, the way to save money is to cut down on expenses. As we all know, this is easier said than done.

Since the truck is the largest single expense, you ought to begin there. Shopping around for the best deal is second nature when it comes to purchasing a vehicle, but it is even more important, when the vehicle is as expensive as a truck.

Unfortunately, these are very hard times and many firms are going to the wall, but this does present opportunities to the owner-driver. There are tremendous deals on second-hand trucks, if you do your homework and have the truck thoroughly inspected before you buy it.

You can off-set the interest you pay on the funding against profits, but you should certainly go for the best deal you can here as well. Try getting a better deal by bundling several insurances into one or try putting all your insurance policies with one broker for a higher discount. Or even do away with the broker (middleman) and go straight to the insurer.

Maintenance is cheaper than repair and it is allowable. It is also cheaper to take a number of common parts with you than have to rely on expensive emergency call-outs.

Fuel is a gigantic cost, so can you acquire a fuel card on the routes you drive? If not, pay for everything with a credit card that offers rewards, but pay off the card every month without fail. Pay by direct debit to make sure. Use it only for business.

Taking a shower can be expensive, up to $10 a time, twice a day. Using your own towel, soap and shampoo can bring this cost down, but some garages offer free showers, if you purchase a minimum volume of fuel or oil.

Eating healthily is also dear on the road. This could make it a good idea to mount a refrigerator in your cab and fill it up where food is cheap and handy. Cutting down on fry-ups and steaks and consuming more fruit would be better for most drivers in any case.

Owen Jones, the author of this article writes on various topics, but is at present involved with truck sat nav systems. If you would like to know more, please go to our website at Laser Temperature Gun.