<prompt> Human: So my job came to me and said as of right now I get paid 33 an hour I travel for work the contract company pays .57 a mile but they do not reimburse for hotel or meals things like that. What they want to do now is do taxable and nontaxable income. They want to decrease my rate of pay to 18 an hour but add 10 an hour for meals and five dollars an hour for gas which comes back out to 33 an hour getting paid. The gas in meal reimbursement is nontaxable but my pay is taxable so ultimately I would be making more a week. Im worried that it will affect my taxes in the coming tax season and if its really actually beneficial for me. Ive never dealt with anything like this before its my first traveling job with this company that I worked for for about two years always at home now so is it a good idea or should I stick with the 33 taxable full income? Thank you in advance. Edit: in California Edit: company stated they will pay the .57 cents also on top of it.  <response>: For that to work without bending any laws you would need to eat 10hour in food and spend 5hour in gas while working. Should you get audited you would need to prove that you actually spent that much. However the company saves on Federal tax, social security, federal unemployment, state unemployment, and Medicaid taxes. They would also save on workmans compensation, disability, and liability insurance costs. Its a shady deal at best. I would start looking for other work. 