Chapter 1 Travel Expenses If you temporarily travel away from your tax home, you can use thischapter to determine if you have deductible travel expenses. Thischapter defines "tax home,""temporary assignment," anddifferent types of travel expenses, including the standard mealallowance. It also discusses the rules for travel inside and outsidethe United States, luxury water travel, and deductible conventionexpenses. Travel expenses defined.For tax purposes, travel expenses are the ordinary and necessaryexpenses of traveling away from home for your business, profession, orjob. However, you cannot deduct expenses that are lavish orextravagant. You will find examples of deductible travel expenses in Table1, later. Traveling away from home.You are traveling away from home if: Your duties require you to be away from the general area ofyour tax home (defined later) substantially longer than an ordinaryday's work, and You need to get sleep or rest to meet the demands of yourwork while away from home. This rest requirement is not satisfied by merely napping inyour car. You do not have to be away from your tax home for a wholeday or from dusk to dawn as long as your relief from duty is longenough to get necessary sleep or rest. Example 1.You are a railroad conductor. You leave your home terminal on aregularly scheduled round-trip run between two cities and return home16 hours later. During the run, you have 6 hours off at yourturnaround point where you eat two meals and rent a hotel room to getnecessary sleep before starting the return trip. You are considered tobe away from home, and you can deduct travel expenses. Example 2.You are a truck driver. You leave your terminal and return to itlater the same day. You get an hour off at your turnaround point toeat. Because you are not off to get necessary sleep and the brief timeoff is not an adequate rest period, your trip is not considered astravel away from home. You cannot deduct travel expenses. Tax Home What Are Travel Expenses?