A woman’s employer repeatedly promised her work near her home, but in the meantime assigned her to various job locations that required her to drive more than 24,000 miles to and from them during the year. Some of the jobs required overnight stays and some were daily round-trips. She deducted her travel for all of them
IRS objections: The travel involving overnight stays was not deductible because those assignments were “indefinite” in duration, not temporary. And the daily round-trips to and from home were simply regular commuting, which isn’t deductible.
Tax Court: Because of the employer’s promises, all the distant jobs were properly treated as “temporary”, since the woman reasonably believed them to be that. Thus, the travel on overnight trips was deductible.
And the daily round-trips were deductible too – because daily travel to a temporary job outside of one’s home metropolitan area is deductible.
Therefore, all the driving was deductible.