Tax Home

A tax home is the general locality of an individual's primary place of work. It is the city or general vicinity where his or her primary place of business or employment is located, regardless of the location of the individual's residence. An individual’s tax home has an effect on his/her tax deductions for business travel.

A taxpayer’s tax home refers to the geographical region where s/he earns the majority of his or her income, regardless of his or her permanent residence. While a permanent residence is the mailing address of an individual, the tax home is the location used to determine where a taxpayer has deductible travel expenses.

The tax home determines whether business expenses for transportation, meals, and lodging will be treated tax-free. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) considers an employee to be traveling away from home if his business obligations require him to be away from his tax home for a period longer than an ordinary work day. If an employee works in New York City, for example, but lives in New Jersey, the tax home is New York City. In this example, travel, meals and lodging expenses in New York City cannot be deducted since that is the individual's tax home. Travel expenses to New Jersey on the weekends cannot be deducted since they would not be work-related expenses. If the same worker travels for work to Chicago, however, any travel, meals, and lodging expenses may be deducted.

Some people, due to the nature of their jobs, work in more than one place. For such a worker, e.g. a freelance web designer, her tax home is the general area where her main place of business or work is located. A taxpayer’s main place of work is determined by how much time she spends at each location for business purposes; how much work she does in each place, and; how much money she earns in each place. Of the three, the most important consideration is the length of time spent at each location.

For workers, such as healthcare workers, that have no fixed workplace and travel to numerous locations for work assignments, the IRS considers their tax homes as their city of permanent residence or where they regularly live. A taxpayer that has neither a main place of business nor a place where s/he regularly lives is considered an itinerant. The tax home of an itinerant, such as an outside salesman, is wherever s/he works since s/he is never really away from home, which means that s/he cannot write off any travel expenses.

Citizens of the U.S. must have their tax homes in a foreign country if they are to qualify for certain tax benefits such as the foreign earned income exclusion, the foreign housing exclusion, and the foreign housing deduction. For example, consider a worker that works in the Netherlands on a 60-day on/30-day off schedule. During his off periods, he returns to his family in the U.S. The IRS considers his abode the United States and, hence, the worker does not satisfy the tax home test in the foreign country. The IRS states that for tax years beginning after December 31, 2017, a worker is not considered to have a tax home in a foreign country for any period during which his abode is in the United States unless he is serving in support of the Armed Forces of the United States in an area designated as a combat zone. The location of one’s abode is based on where s/he maintains family, economic, and personal ties.

An individual that has a temporary work assignment outside his U.S. tax home can deduct travel expenses paid or incurred but would not qualify for the foreign earned income exclusion. Any work assignment that is for more than one year is considered indefinite. If a taxpayer’s work assignment is for an indefinite period, the place of his assignment is his tax home, and he would not be allowed to deduct any of the related expenses that he incurs in his tax home. In addition, if his new tax home is in a foreign country and he meets the foreign tax home requirements, his earnings may qualify him for the foreign earned income exclusion.