You might be able to deduct travel expenses if you are an employee who temporarily travels away from your tax home for business purposes. The information in this document will help you determine what job-related expenses you may deduct on Form 2106, Employee Business Expenses, if any.

You are traveling away from home if both of the following apply:

Your duties require you to be away from the general area of your tax home substantially longer than an ordinary day's work.
You need to sleep or rest to meet the demands of your work while away from home.
Travel Expenses
For tax purposes, travel expenses are the ordinary and necessary expenses of traveling away from home for a business, a profession, or a job. The following chart lists common deductible expenses you might have when traveling away from home for business purposes.

If you have expenses for:
Then, you can deduct the cost of:

Transportation
Travel by airplane, train, bus, or car between your home and your business destination. If you are given a free ticket or are riding free as a result of a frequent traveler or similar program, your cost is zero.

If you travel by ship, refer to the IRS Publication 463, "Luxury Water Travel" section for additional rules and limits.

Taxi, commuter bus, and airport limousine
Fares for these and other types of transportation that take you between one of the following:
The airport or station and your hotel
The hotel and the work location of your customers or clients, your business meeting place, or your temporary work location

Baggage and shipping
Sending baggage and sample or display material between your regular and temporary work locations.

Car
Operating and maintaining your car when traveling away from home on business. You can deduct actual expenses or the standard mileage rate, as well as business-related tolls and parking. If you rent a car while away from home on business, you can deduct only the business-use portion of the expenses.Read more on Job-Related Vehicle Expenses.

Lodging and meals
Your lodging and meals if your business trip is overnight or long enough that you need to stop for sleep or rest to properly perform your duties. Meals include amounts spent for food, beverages, taxes, and related tips. Refer to the IRS Publication 463, "Meals" section for additional rules and limits.

Cleaning
Dry cleaning and laundry.

Telephone
Business calls while on your business trip. This includes business communication by fax machine or other communication devices.

Tips
Tips you pay for any expenses in this chart.

Other
Other similar ordinary and necessary expenses related to your business travel. These expenses might include the cost of transportation to or from a business meal, public stenographer's fees, computer rental fees, and the cost of operating and maintaining a house trailer.

Tax Home
For job-related travel expenses, you must be traveling away from your tax home. The following guidelines clarify where your tax home is considered to be:

Generally, your tax home is the regular place of business or post of duty, regardless of where you maintain your family home. The tax home includes the entire city or general area of your place of business.

If you have more than one regular place of business, your tax home refers to your main place of business.

If you have no main place of business because of the nature of your work or the circumstances, your tax home may be the place where you regularly live or where your main home is located. Use the following to determine whether your main home can be considered your tax home:

You perform part of your business in the area of your main home and use that home for lodging while doing business in the area.

You have living expenses at your main home that you duplicate because your business requires you to be away from that home.

You have not abandoned the area in which both your historical place of lodging and your claimed main home are located, you have a member or members of your family living at your main home, or you often use your main home for lodging.

If there is no place where you regularly live, your tax home is wherever you work. In this case, you cannot claim a travel expense deduction because you are never considered to be traveling away from home.

Review the following examples of whether job-related travel expenses can be deducted for travel away from a tax home:

Sara is single and lives in Boston, Massachusetts in an apartment she rents. For a number of years, she has worked for her employer, who has enrolled her in a 12-month executive training program. She does not expect to return to work in Boston after she completes her training. During her training, Sara does not do any work in Boston. Instead, she receives classroom and on-the-job training throughout the United States. She keeps her apartment in Boston and returns to it frequently. She uses her apartment to conduct personal business and keep up her community contacts in Boston. When Sara completes her training, she is transferred to Los Angeles, California. Sara's tax home is Boston because she had duplicate living expenses and she maintained community contacts there.

Maria Pia is an outside salesperson with a sales territory covering several states. Her employer's main office is in Newark, New Jersey but she does not conduct any business there. Her work assignments are temporary and she has no way of knowing where her future assignments will be located. She has a room she does not pay for in her married sister's house in Dayton, Ohio where she stays for one or two weekends a year, but she does no work in that area. Maria Pia does not have a tax home because she does not meet any of the guidelines listed above. She cannot deduct her travel expenses.

Jared, the truck driver, lives with his family in Tucson, Arizona. He is employed by a trucking firm that has its terminal in Phoenix, Arizona. At the end of his long runs, Jared returns to his home terminal in Phoenix and spends one night there before returning home. Phoenix is considered his tax home. He cannot deduct any expenses he has for meals and lodging in Phoenix or the cost of traveling from Phoenix to Tucson.

Chloe lives with her family in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she works 12 weeks a year. The rest of the year she works for the same employer in Baltimore, Maryland. In Baltimore, she eats in restaurants and sleeps in a rooming house. Her salary is the same whether she is in Pittsburgh or Baltimore. Because she spends most of her working time and earns most of her salary in Baltimore, that city is her tax home. She cannot deduct any expenses she has for meals and lodging there. However, when she returns to work in Pittsburgh, she is away from her tax home even though she stays at her family's home. Chloe can deduct the cost of her round trip between Baltimore and Pittsburgh and her part of her family's living expenses for meals and lodging while she is living and working in Pittsburgh.

Temporary Travel
To have qualified job-related travel expenses, you can either be temporarily away from home or on a temporary assignment. You are considered to be temporarily away from home if your duties require you to be away from the general area of your tax home substantially longer than an ordinary day's work and you need to sleep or rest to meet the demands of your work while away from home.

Review the following examples of whether job-related travel expenses can be deducted for temporary travel:

Bob is a railroad conductor. He leaves his home terminal on a regularly scheduled round-trip run between two cities and returns home 16 hours later. During the run, Bob has six hours off at his turnaround point where he eats two meals and rents a hotel room to get necessary sleep before starting the return trip. Bob is considered to be away from home. He can deduct his expenses.

Jared is a truck driver. He leaves his terminal and returns to it later the same day. He gets an hour off at his turnaround point to eat. Because Jared is not off to get necessary sleep and the brief time off is not an adequate rest period, he is not traveling away from his tax home. He cannot deduct his expenses.

You will generally be considered on a temporary assignment if you realistically expect it to last (and it does last) for one year or less. Note: If you are a federal employee participating in a federal crime investigation or prosecution, you are not subject to the one-year rule.

For example, Carlos is a construction worker who lives and regularly works in Los Angeles, California. He is a member of a trade union in Los Angeles that helps him get work in the Los Angeles area. Because of a shortage of work, he took a job on a construction project in Fresno, California. His job was scheduled to end in a certain number of months but actually lasted 10 months. There are three possible scenarios:

Carlos realistically expected the job in Fresno to last eight months. The job actually lasted less than one year. The job is temporary and his tax home is still in Los Angeles. He can deduct his expenses.

Carlos realistically expected the work in Fresno to last 18 months but the job actually was completed in 10 months. Fresno became his tax home because his job in Fresno was considered indefinite (even though it actually lasted less than one year, he realistically expected the work to last longer than one year). Carlos cannot deduct any travel expenses he had in Fresno.

Carlos realistically expected the work in Fresno to last nine months. After eight months, he was asked to remain for seven more months (for a total actual stay of 15 months). Due to changed circumstances occurring after eight months, it was no longer realistic for Carlos to expect that the job in Fresno would last for one year or less. Carlos can deduct his travel expenses only for the first eight months. He cannot deduct any travel expenses he had after that time because Fresno became his tax home when the job became indefinite.

Please remember that your Emerald Tax Service tax preparer is ready to help answer any questions you may have regarding job-related travel expenses. You should bring documentation of all of your job-related travel expenses to your interview with your Emerald Tax Service tax preparer.