@nikkijosh06
Should you be concerned? Yes. I assume that the employer is going to do exactly what xmasbaby0 said is "sketchy." To put it more bluntly, they are cheating. What they say they will do is not legal. They are paying you $360/week as if it is not wages, in order to avoid paying payroll taxes and the employer's share of Social Security and Medicare taxes.
All payments from an employer to an employee are wages and are supposed to be included in the wages in box 1 of your W-2, no matter what they call it or what they say it's for. If you go along with this arrangement you will end up paying self-employment tax on the $360/week. That essentially means that you are paying both the employee's share and the employer's share of the Social Security and Medicare taxes.
There is a way to avoid paying the extra tax by reporting the income on your tax return as income that should have been included in your W-2. But that brings it to the attention of the IRS. If the IRS starts looking into it, the employer might get annoyed and fire you.
There is a way for an employer to reimburse an employee for legitimate business expenses without reporting the reimbursement as wages. That would involve you submitting an expense report with receipts for your actual business expenses. But it's pretty clear that that's not what's going on here. And "housing allowance" is not a normal business expense.
Note that the illegality here is on the part of the employer, not you. But it's definitely shady. And if they cheat on their taxes, what else do they cheat on?
Sorry to put a damper on what might otherwise be a great job.
