In addition to reimbursement of travel costs and lodging expenses, full-time employees working on short-term assignments in a city that is different from their permanent place of residence may be entitled to a per diem allowance.
Per diem is the allowance for lodging (excluding taxes), meals and incidental expenses. The General Services Administration (GSA) establishes per diem rates for destinations within the United States. Per diem allowance is paid as specified by IRS guidelines. The current per-diem rates as established by the GSA can be located at www.gsa.gov/perdiem.
Per diem will be paid to the employee only for a period of 12 months at the same project/client or work site. There will be no per diem reimbursement on projects/assignments having an initial term greater than 12 months, or from the point it is deemed that a project/assignment initially estimated to have a term less than 12 months would extend beyond 12 months.
The following guidelines are used to determine the short-term nature of an assignment and eligibility for the per diem allowance:
- Generally, the project/assignment duration is short term (less than 6 months, however not to exceed 1 year)
- Per diem allowances are paid for working/business days ONLY (Monday through Friday)
- An employee’s permanent place of residence must be different from the work location, and the two locations must be at least 50 miles apart.
- Address verification for the permanent address needs to be provided (utility bill, copy of tax returns, mortgage payment statement, etc.)
- Address verification for the temporary address at the client/work location needs to be provided (lease agreement, hotel bill, etc.)
- Mastech Digital will not pay any relocation assistance for employee who are receiving per diem
- Employees cannot use their relative’s residence address as their permanent residence
- Employees can stay at their relatives’ or friends residence at the project/work location, however would need to provide a rent receipt from the home owner
Seasonal per diem rates – GSA has created seasonal rate periods in many markets where there is a sustained period (two or more months in length) where the Average Daily Rates (ADR) is different from the preceding or following period by at least 15. The seasonal rates can also be located at www.gsa.gov/perdiem.
