Welcome to the TravelTax Blog

While you may have read my articles on various websites, or my posts on FB pages and other forums, from time to time I like to wax eloquent without fitting my thoughts into someone else’s prescripted format. Some of the entries may be long and a few will simply be rants. Whatever the case, you are guaranteed to find some nugget of tax knowledge fitting for your situation with a dash of sarcasm or philosophy.

Since our clients are primarily engaged in multistate assignments, cross border employment or posted abroad, they share a common connection of working on the road, exploring the world or just planting themselves in a foreign land ….. travelers and nomads at heart.

Be sure to visit our website http://www.traveltax.com

Thanks for reading!

When it Comes to Duplicated Expenses, its All About the Home / Dwelling

A lot of Travelers mistakenly think that paying rent is a magic carpet ride to a tax home. This is not the case. You must be maintaining a dwelling that you use for your own lodging. Paying rent and maintaining a home you pay rent for are different things. That means the following types of arrangements that some speak of do not rise to the level of a “maintaining a dwelling”:

  1. I give Mom some money
  2. I help out with expenses
  3. I pay a utility bill
  4. I help out when at home
  5. I help my aunt out by sending her money
  6. I pay for a storage unit

When its an arrangement with a related party, the entire package needs to look, smell and taste like a real rental OR an equitable sharing of expenses.

The court case linked below distinguishes #5 above from a real rental or maintenance of a home. As the discussion states, “[t]he reason for allowing deductions for expenses while away from home {and / or allow tax free reimbursements (per diems) is to mitigate the burden placed on taxpayers who, for business reasons, must maintain two places of abode”

In the case the taxpayer tried to use her benevolent payments to an aunt as proof of duplicated expenses.

Valdez v Commissioner

Trips Home During Assignments or Between Extensions

We are often asked about whether trips home are deductible during assignments or between extensions.

A trip home during an assignment is considered a personal expense by the IRS unless there is a business purpose for the journey. If one is returning home for work then most all of the trip is deductible, but if the return home is for personal reasons, then the deductions are limited to what would be deducted if the traveler stayed at the assignment area. For example, if one has an apartment at the assignment area, the lodging costs do not change however, the employee cannot deduct meal allowances when at home. The meal allowances are the only part that could have been deductible had the traveler stayed. If the meal allowance was $50/day and the employee when home for 4 days then $200 of transportation expenses for the journey home would be allowed

For reference, read the next to last paragraph of this ruling

Revenue Ruling 54-497 on Trips Home

The Oregon trail leads to a cliff –

Two recent tax related cases were decided and happened to be printed on the same newswire. One a Federal case that was on appeal and the other an Oregon state case. Both involved taxpayers claiming expenses for the use of an RV for business related activity while on the road. The Federal case made the IRS happy, the Oregon case …… well …… the OR state attorneys missed the boat or forgot to ask the IRS.

A little background is necessary before appreciating this.

First, the IRS, following tax court precedent, does not allow a taxpayer to depreciate an RV when it is also used as a residence more than 14 days. This is well established due to that fact that an RV is very difficult to partition into a home office deduction that requires exclusive use of an area of a residence for business.

Second, Oregon tax code specifically mirrors Federal tax law except where the Oregon legislature has decided to deviate. Outside of these exceptions, what the IRS does, Oregon does as well – or is supposed to.

Enter the two cases which are provided for your reading. The Federal case was decided right along the lines of the previous Federal cases addressing RV usage – in fact this one was an appeal that was upheld. Nothing grand there. However, the Oregon case went down the wrong trail. The attorney for the taxpayer in the Oregon case argued that the RV was deductible since it was a condition of employment for the taxpayer to maintain his own lodging at various jobsites. The Oregon attorney handling the case sort of took the bait and argued against the condition of employment and did not even mention (or was not aware) the Federal precedent. Well, if procuring lodging near a worksite is a condition of employment and you buy an RV to satisfy that, based on that condition alone, you have a major depreciation deduction. That is where the Internal Revenue Code adds another hurdle preventing one from deducting depreciation for a structure that passes the test of a dwelling, owned by the taxpayer, if they use it for more than 14 days, unless they can carve out exclusive business use of the dwelling from the personal use area.  Can’t do that in an RV.

The Oregon attorney didn’t even mention the Federal case, not attempted to argue the code section that supported it. Even the judge didn’t think about Federal precedent, but happily set a precedent for Oregon RV owners that want to use RVs for their lodging at worksites.

I called the attorney’s office in Oregon and they said they would probably issue a “non-acquiescence” which means they just don’t agree with the court. The case is allowed an appeal so we will wait to see. I have even provided another Federal case that decided the same 🙂

Federal Case from 2014

Oregon Case

Federal Case in Appeals

State Tax Residency Cases-Indiana Style

The title is a bit misleading and purposeful as this really doesn’t add to the body of knowledge for state tax residency rules. However, it reinforces the basis by which most states determine tax residency.

State tax residency is important as the state where an individual keeps their legal domicile is the state that has a right to tax global/worldwide income earned by the taxpayer. The more common term to describe this relationship is a Permanent Residence. This is different from the concept of a Tax Home that determines from where an individual has travel related expenses that are either deductible or that they can receive reimbursements for on tax-free basis. .

Many of our clients deal with Permanent Residence issues either because they are moving, staying too long in one state or the state wants to take an aggressive tone toward some relationship that the client has to a state.

In these 2 Indiana state tax cases, one positive for the taxpayer and the other negative, the same common benchmarks were used to determine whether the taxpayers had a domicile in Indiana. These benchmarks are common to most states:

1) Purchasing or renting residential property
2) Registering to vote
3) Seeking elective office
4) Filing a resident state income tax return or complying with the homestead laws of a state
5) Receiving public assistance
6) Titling and registering a motor vehicle (Drivers Licenses)
7) Preparing a new last will and testament which includes the state of domicile.

Item 6 is very important as you will see in the two cases that are linked below:

In the first case, entitled “negative”, the taxpayer was a physician that moved to Louisiana to take a permanent job, however, he continued to use his ex-spouses address in Indiana for license, registration and insurance purposes.  Most states treat residency similar to a flight on an airplane-when you take off, the wheels no longer touch the ground and when you land the wheels touch the ground in the new location. When one moves and changes their domicile they are expected to sever all residential ties so that their affairs no longer touch the old state. Additionally they are expected to establish ties in the new state to replace the ones that were severed in the old state. You cannot just take off, you have to land as well. Similar to this case, the taxpayer took off but never landed as he continued to maintain his Indiana residential and legal ties.

2016-indiana-residence-case-negative

In the second case that was decided for the taxpayer, a couple moved from Florida to Indiana, however the wife came first and the husband came a year later. Generally, most states expect spouses to move together which is most likely the reason that Indiana Department of Revenue expected the couple to file joint returns as residents Indiana in the wife’s first year of residence. However, in this case, the husband remained in Florida working at his full-time job and did not change his legal ties  – his driver’s license and car registration,  until he moved to Indiana. The wife was correctly judged to be a part year resident of Indiana in year one, and the husband a part year resident of Indiana beginning in year two.

2016-indiana-residence-case-positive

Take Away

One of the most common misconceptions among mobile professionals is that they are only taxed in whatever state they work. That is not the case. An individual is taxed on their worldwide income by the state in which they are domiciled-where they maintain their permanent residence. They are also taxed by the work state on income earned within their borders. However, to relieve the possibility of double taxation, the home state will generally credit the taxpayer for taxes paid to other states on the same income.

The final take away is simply the power of the state to impose tax on all income an individual earns if they continue to maintain their legal ties to that state. Simply taking another job in another state doesn’t change the equation. The ties to the old state must be severed and at the same time, ties to the new state must be established.