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In re Appeal of MacDonald7/18/2005
em payments as a deduction from his income for tax purposes does not change our view. Neither MacDonald nor NCS reported the per diem payments as income for tax purposes. Just as the claimant attempted to do in Carnahan, MacDonald is seeking to capitalize on a contradiction. There the claimant sought to exclude his expenses as deductions from his income for tax purposes, but to include them in his income for workers' compensation purposes. Carnahan, 149 N.H. at 435. MacDonald similarly wishes to exclude his per diem payments for tax purposes by not reporting them as income, yet include them as wages for the purpose of calculating his workers' compensation award. We fail to see any justification for this.
We hold, therefore, that the board did not err in deciding that the per diem payments received by MacDonald were not part of his "wages," but rather were reimbursements made to cover employment-related "special expenses." Consequently, the board did not err in excluding the per diem payments from MacDonald's gross earnings for the purpose of calculating his average weekly wage under RSA 281-A:15, I.
Affirmed.
NADEAU, DALIANIS, DUGGAN and GALWAY, JJ., concurred.
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