dsbweb01[at]yahoo.com wrote:

- quote -

As you noted, since your assignments intended to be longer
than 1 year, nothing is deductible on that basis.

[However, "temporary" can have a very loose definition:
1) There was a court case where a person was on a series of
temporary assignments, not seeing home for 4 years, and all
of it was allowed as she was supposed to return to her home
residence and office after each had each assignment not been
temporally contiguous.

2) In a different context, "temporary regulation," the Tax
Court did state that TRs in place before the addition of IRC
7805(e) [the 3 year statutory limit, added in 1988] can
still be "temporarily in effect" even up to 12 years later
when not made permanent, replaced, or affirmatively
rescinded. I'm just waiting for this definition of
"temporary" to come back and bite the TC.]

You might have a SECOND workplace, and thus can take a
deduction on that basis.

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I think you are confusing the tax definition of "consultant"
and "self-employed" with the looser business usage. People
being paid by consulting firms are really employees in the
tax sense.

It sounds like you are operating a business and have more
latitude in deducting expenses than an employee.

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I am a self-employed computer consultant (and also a CPA), who works on
large-scale projects which are usually long-term. It is not unusual
for a project to last longer than a year. I began a project in June
2003, which continues until this day. In 2004, it was my only client,
but I typically spend only 4 days a week there. The other day I am in
my home office either looking for other clients or doing administrative
tasks. In addition I telecommuted 10 to 15 work days during the year
from my home office. My question is whether I need to adhere to the
1-year temporary assignment rule for Travel Expenses. I know of other
consulting firms which pull their people back for a month and put them
back out the next year so they avoid the limitation. Or others which
write separate annual contracts. The 1-year rule does not seem to make
sense if you are not spending 100% of your time at the location. Any
thoughts would be appreciated.

Doug.

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