Tax Home vs. Residence Home

OK, Roadmedic, I have to admit, I was mostly ignoring the 3 rules you suggested reading. I consistently found a tax home at the main place of business based upon the post of duty concept, before I ever got to those 3 rules.

In looking into this more, I looked more closely at those 3 rules from Publication 463:

Time: There are very few places, if any, where the driver would spend more time than the home terminal. ("The road" is not a place; it's many, many places.)

Activity: There's a lot of ongoing activity at and with the home terminal. Very few places, if any, would exceed this.

Income: Even though it's calculated based upon miles of the road, the income comes from the terminal. Without load assignments from the terminal, there would be zero income. This is pretty significant. On the other hand, the income from any other particular place on the road is insignificant.

 

I wasn't exempting the road. "The road" isn't just one place — it's many. Few drivers spend more time in any individual place on the road than they do at their home terminal. That's why the home terminal wins this one.

Yes, but the driver is regularly interacting with and getting loads from his home terminal.

Yes, but the driver's point of contact is with his home terminal.

Because you asked me to read those three rules. Like I say, for company drivers and OO's contracted to one company with a home terminal, I find I never need to get that far into the rules. Those drivers have a post of duty which determines their tax home, just like the Phoenix based trucker in the IRS example in Publication 463.

 

Here's another example, very close on point, from J.K. Lasser's Your Income Tax 2010:

Substituting "truck driver" for "airline pilot", "drive" for "fly, " and "terminal" for "airport," this would read:

Truck Drivers. It is important for truck drivers who drive in and out of various locations to determine a tax home for income and deduction purposes. Generally, the IRS considers a truck driver's tax home to be the terminal at which the truck driver is regularly based.

Bear in mind, I have no knowledge of the IRS making such a determination with respect to truck drivers. Nonetheless, it doesn't take much logic to see that it could easily come to such a conclusion. The fact differences that distinguish one occupation from the other are not significant enough to warrant a different treatment.

 

Here's an IRS document that (on page 27), instead of using the term "post of duty," uses the term "official duty station" for the tax home:

This would tend to support the idea of the home terminal being the tax home for a company driver.

 

Here's a book by H & R Block in which they give an example of when a truck driver can claim travel expense deductions for being away from home. The key is when he is away from his home terminal.

 

Here's a example from the IRS Taxable Fringe Benefit Guide (on page 27), for somebody with no business tax home:

For company drivers with a home terminal, their employers do have offices where the drivers report.