Fourth Edition William Kratzke
II. Deductibility Under §§ 162 or 212
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- Commissioner v. Flowers
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II. Deductibility Under §§ 162 or 212After determining that an expense is not a capital expenditure, § 162 (and § 212), coupled with § 274 define and delimit the precise scope of expenses of generating income that taxpayer may deduct. Read § 162(a). How many types of trade or business expenses are deductible? •We will consider several § 162 issues, but we will not consider them in the sequence in which they appear in the Code. •Read § 262. What are the consequences of a court concluding that an expenditure is for a personal expense? A. Travel Expenses Read § 162(a)(2). Commissioner v. Flowers, 326 U.S. 465 (1946) MR. JUSTICE MURPHY delivered the opinion of the Court. This case presents a problem as to the meaning and application of the provision of § [162(a)(2)] of the Internal Revenue Code, [footnote omitted] allowing a deduction for income tax purposes of “traveling expenses (including the entire amount expended for meals and lodging) while away from home in the pursuit of a trade or business.” The taxpayer, a lawyer, has resided with his family in Jackson, Mississippi, since 1903. There, he has paid taxes, voted, schooled his children, and established social and religious connections. He built a house in Jackson nearly thirty years ago, and at all times has maintained it for himself and his family. He has been connected with several law firms in Jackson, one of which he formed and which has borne his name since 1922. In 1906, the taxpayer began to represent the predecessor of the Gulf, Mobile & Ohio Railroad, his present employer. He acted as trial counsel for the railroad throughout Mississippi. From 1918 until 1927, he acted as special counsel for the railroad in Mississippi. He was elected general solicitor in 1927, and continued to be elected to that position each year until 1930, when he was elected general counsel. Thereafter, he was annually elected general counsel until September, 1940, when the properties of the predecessor company and another railroad were merged and he was elected vice-president and general counsel of the newly formed Gulf, Mobile & Ohio Railroad. The main office of the Gulf, Mobile & Ohio Railroad is in Mobile, Alabama, as was also the main office of its predecessor. When offered the position of general solicitor in 1927, the taxpayer was unwilling to accept it if it required him to move from Jackson to Mobile. He had established himself in Jackson both professionally and personally, and was not desirous of moving away. As a result, an arrangement was made between him and the railroad whereby he could accept the position and continue to reside in Jackson on condition that he pay his traveling expenses between Mobile and Jackson and pay his living expenses in both places. This arrangement permitted the taxpayer to determine for himself the amount of time he would spend in each of the two cities, and was in effect during 1939 and 1940, the taxable years in question. The railroad company provided an office for the taxpayer in Mobile, but not in Jackson. When he worked in Jackson, his law firm provided him with office space, although he no longer participated in the firm’s business or shared in its profits. He used his own office furniture and fixtures at this office. The railroad, however, furnished telephone service and a typewriter and desk for his secretary. It also paid the secretary’s expenses while in Jackson. Most of the legal business of the railroad was centered in or conducted from Jackson, but this business was handled by local counsel for the railroad. The taxpayer’s participation was advisory only, and was no different from his participation in the railroad’s legal business in other areas. The taxpayer’s principal post of business was at the main office in Mobile. However, during the taxable years of 1939 and 1940, he devoted nearly all of his time to matters relating to the merger of the railroads. Since it was left to him where he would do his work, he spent most of his time in Jackson during this period. In connection with the merger, one of the companies was involved in certain litigation in the federal court in Jackson, and the taxpayer participated in that litigation. During 1939, he spent 203 days in Jackson and 66 in Mobile, making 33 trips between the two cities. During 1940, he spent 168 days in Jackson and 102 in Mobile, making 40 trips between the two cities. The railroad paid all of his traveling expenses when he went on business trips to points other than Jackson or Mobile. But it paid none of his expenses in traveling between these two points or while he was at either of them. The taxpayer deducted $900 in his 1939 income tax return and $1,620 in his 1940 return as traveling expenses incurred in making trips from Jackson to Mobile and as expenditures for meals and hotel accommodations while in Mobile.117 The Commissioner disallowed the deductions, which action was sustained by the Tax Court. But the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the Tax Court’s judgment, and we granted certiorari because of a conflict between the decision below and that reached by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Barnhill v. Commissioner, 148 F.2d 913. The portion of § [162(a)(2)] authorizing the deduction of “traveling expenses (including the entire amount expended for meals and lodging) while away from home in the pursuit of a trade or business” is one of the specific examples given by Congress in that section of “ordinary and necessary expenses paid or incurred during the taxable year in carrying on any trade or business.” It is to be contrasted with the provision of § [262(a)] of the Internal Revenue Code, disallowing any deductions for “personal, living, or family expenses.” ... In pertinent part, [the applicable regulation] states that “Traveling expenses, as ordinarily understood, include railroad fares and meals and lodging. If the trip is undertaken for other than business purposes, the railroad fares are personal expenses, and the meals and lodging are living expenses. If the trip is solely on business, the reasonable and necessary traveling expenses, including railroad fares, meals, and lodging, are business expenses. ... Only such expenses as are reasonable and necessary in the conduct of the business and directly attributable to it may be deducted. ... Commuters’ fares are not considered as business expenses, and are not deductible.” Three conditions must thus be satisfied before a traveling expense deduction may be made under § [162(a)(2)]: (1) The expense must be a reasonable and necessary traveling expense, as that term is generally understood. This includes such items as transportation fares and food and lodging expenses incurred while traveling. (2) The expense must be incurred “while away from home.” (3) The expense must be incurred in pursuit of business. This means that there must be a direct connection between the expenditure and the carrying on of the trade or business of the taxpayer or of his employer. Moreover, such an expenditure must be necessary or appropriate to the development and pursuit of the business or trade. Whether particular expenditures fulfill these three conditions so as to entitle a taxpayer to a deduction is purely a question of fact in most instances. See Commissioner v. Heininger, 320 U. S. 467, 475. And the Tax Court’s inferences and conclusions on such a factual matter, under established principles, should not be disturbed by an appellate court. Commissioner v. Scottish American Co., 323 U. S. 119; Dobson v. Commissioner, 320 U. S. 489. In this instance, the Tax Court, without detailed elaboration, concluded that “The situation presented in this proceeding is, in principle, no different from that in which a taxpayer’s place of employment is in one city and, for reasons satisfactory to himself, he resides in another.” It accordingly disallowed the deductions on the ground that they represent living and personal expenses, rather than traveling expenses incurred while away from home in the pursuit of business. The court below accepted the Tax Court’s findings of fact, but reversed its judgment on the basis that it had improperly construed the word “home” as used in the second condition precedent to a traveling expense deduction under § [162(a)(2)] The Tax Court, it was said, erroneously construed the word to mean the post, station, or place of business where the taxpayer was employed – in this instance, Mobile – and thus erred in concluding that the expenditures in issue were not incurred “while away from home.” The Court below felt that the word was to be given no such “unusual” or “extraordinary” meaning in this statute, that it simply meant “that place where one in fact resides” or “the principal place of abode of one who has the intention to live there permanently.” Since the taxpayer here admittedly had his home, as thus defined, in Jackson, and since the expenses were incurred while he was away from Jackson, the deduction was permissible. The meaning of the word “home” in § [162(a)(2)] with reference to a taxpayer residing in one city and working in another has engendered much difficulty and litigation. 4 Mertens, Law of Federal Income Taxation (1942) § 25.82. The Tax Court [footnote omitted] and the administrative rulings118 have consistently defined it as the equivalent of the taxpayer’s place of business. See Barnhill v. Commissioner, supra. On the other hand, the decision below and Wallace v. Commissioner, 144 F.2d 407, have flatly rejected that view, and have confined the term to the taxpayer’s actual residence. [citation omitted]. We deem it unnecessary here to enter into or to decide this conflict. The Tax Court’s opinion, as we read it, was grounded neither solely nor primarily upon that agency’s conception of the word “home.” Its discussion was directed mainly toward the relation of the expenditures to the railroad’s business, a relationship required by the third condition of the deduction. Thus, even if the Tax Court’s definition of the word “home” was implicit in its decision, and even if that definition was erroneous, its judgment must be sustained here if it properly concluded that the necessary relationship between the expenditures and the railroad’s business was lacking. Failure to satisfy any one of the three conditions destroys the traveling expense deduction. Turning our attention to the third condition, this case is disposed of quickly. ... The facts demonstrate clearly that the expenses were not incurred in the pursuit of the business of the taxpayer’s employer, the railroad. Jackson was his regular home. Had his post of duty been in that city, the cost of maintaining his home there and of commuting or driving to work concededly would be nondeductible living and personal expenses lacking the necessary direct relation to the prosecution of the business. The character of such expenses is unaltered by the circumstance that the taxpayer’s post of duty was in Mobile, thereby increasing the costs of transportation, food, and lodging. Whether he maintained one abode or two, whether he traveled three blocks or three hundred miles to work, the nature of these expenditures remained the same. The added costs in issue, moreover, were as unnecessary and inappropriate to the development of the railroad’s business as were his personal and living costs in Jackson. They were incurred solely as the result of the taxpayer’s desire to maintain a home in Jackson while working in Mobile, a factor irrelevant to the maintenance and prosecution of the railroad’s legal business. The railroad did not require him to travel on business from Jackson to Mobile, or to maintain living quarters in both cities. Nor did it compel him, save in one instance, to perform tasks for it in Jackson. It simply asked him to be at his principal post in Mobile as business demanded and as his personal convenience was served, allowing him to divide his business time between Mobile and Jackson as he saw fit. Except for the federal court litigation, all of the taxpayer’s work in Jackson would normally have been performed in the headquarters at Mobile. The fact that he traveled frequently between the two cities and incurred extra living expenses in Mobile, while doing much of his work in Jackson, was occasioned solely by his personal propensities. The railroad gained nothing from this arrangement except the personal satisfaction of the taxpayer. Travel expenses in pursuit of business within the meaning of § [162(a)(2)] could arise only when the railroad’s business forced the taxpayer to travel and to live temporarily at some place other than Mobile, thereby advancing the interests of the railroad. Business trips are to be identified in relation to business demands and the traveler’s business headquarters. The exigencies of business, rather than the personal conveniences and necessities of the traveler, must be the motivating factors. Such was not the case here. It follows that the court below erred in reversing the judgment of the Tax Court. Reversed. MR. JUSTICE JACKSON took no part in the consideration or decision of this case. MR. JUSTICE RUTLEDGE, dissenting. I think the judgment of the Court of Appeals should be affirmed. When Congress used the word “home” in § [162] of the Code, I do not believe it meant “business headquarters.” And, in my opinion, this case presents no other question. …. Congress gave the deduction for traveling away from home on business. The commuter’s case, rightly confined, does not fall in this class. One who lives in an adjacent suburb or City and by usual modes of commutation can work within a distance permitting the daily journey and return, with time for the day’s work and a period at home, clearly can be excluded from the deduction on the basis of the section’s terms equally with its obvious purpose. ... If the line may be extended somewhat to cover doubtful cases, it need not be lengthened to infinity or to cover cases as far removed from the prevailing connotation of commuter as this one. Including it pushes “commuting” too far, even for these times of rapid transit.119 Administrative construction should have some bounds. It exceeds what are legitimate when it reconstructs the statute to nullify or contradict the plain meaning of nontechnical terms not artfully employed. ... By construing “home” as “business headquarters;” by reading “temporarily” as “very temporarily” into § [162]; by bringing down “ordinary and necessary” from its first sentence into its second;120 by finding “inequity” where Congress has said none exists; by construing “commuter” to cover long distance, irregular travel, and by conjuring from the “statutory setting” a meaning at odds with the plain wording of the clause, the Government makes over understandable ordinary English into highly technical tax jargon. ... Notes and Questions: 1. Reg. § 1.162-2 is now the regulation covering “traveling expenses” whose provisions have not materially changed those quoted by the Court in Flowers. Reimbursement of Non-deductible Expenditures: Taxpayer paid his expenses and tried to deduct them. What result if taxpayer’s employer had paid for taxpayer’s train tickets, hotels, and meals while in Mobile? Would (should) that have solved taxpayer’s problems – or made them worse? See discussion of Brandl v. Commissioner, infra. 2. Can commuting expenses ever meet the third requirement of deductibility, i.e., “a direct connection between the expenditure and the carrying on of the trade or business of the taxpayer or of his employer?” 3. Does Justice Rutledge have a point? After all, the Court later construed the word “gift” in its ordinary sense in Duberstein. 4. Upon application of the Court’s standards, why will taxpayer’s home usually be the “post, station, or place of business where the taxpayer [is] employed?” 5. Robert Rosenspan was a jewelry salesman who worked on a commission basis and paid his own traveling expenses without reimbursement. In 1964 he was the employee of two New York City jewelry manufacturers. For 300 days during the year he traveled by automobile through an extensive sales territory in the Middle West. He stayed at hotels and motels and ate at restaurants. Five times during the year he returned to New York and spent several days at his employers’ offices. There he performed a variety of services essential to his work, i.e., cleaned up his sample case, checked orders, discussed customers’ credit problems, recommended changes in stock, attended annual staff meetings, and the like. He used his brother’s Brooklyn home as a personal residential address. He kept some clothing and other belongings there. He voted, and filed his income tax returns from that address. On his trips to New York City, "out of a desire not to abuse his welcome at his brother’s home, he stayed more often” at an inn near the John F. Kennedy Airport. •What tax issue(s) do these facts raise? How should they be resolved? •See Rosenspan v. United States, 438 F.2d 905 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 404 U.S. 864 (1971).
However, § 62(a)(2)(A) permits taxpayer to reduce his AGI by trade or business expenditures (i.e., deduct “above-the-line”) if his employer (or the employer’s agent or a third party) has a “reimbursement or other expense allowance arrangement.” See also Reg. § 1.62-2. The net effect of such employer reimbursement of employee trade or business expenses is a wash. The arrangement must require substantiation of deductible expenditures so that such arrangements do not become a means by which employees can receive compensation without paying income tax on it. How is a “reimbursement or other expense allowance arrangement” advantageous to both employer and employee?
•What tax issue(s) do these facts raise? How do you think they should be resolved and why? •See Folkman v. United States, 615 F.2d 493 (9th Cir. 1980).
•Must Taxpayer Brandl include the $8288.68 in his taxable income? •If so, may he deduct that amount as a “travel expense” under § 162(a)(2)? •See Brandl v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo 1974-160 (1974). 5c. Taxpayers were employees at the Nevada Test Site, a nuclear testing facility. Las Vegas, Nevada, the closest habitable community to the Test Site, is 65 miles south of the Camp Mercury control point, located at the southernmost boundary of the Test Site, and 130 miles from the northernmost boundary of the Test Site. Because of the potential dangers arising out of the activities conducted at the Test Site, the government chose this location precisely because of its remoteness from populated areas. All of the taxpayers assigned to the Test Site received, in addition to their regular wages, a per diem allowance for each day they reported for work at the Test Site. The amount of the allowance varied. Employees reporting to Camp Mercury received $5 per day; those reporting to any forward area received $7.50 per day. Employees received these allowances without regard to the actual costs incurred by them for transportation, meals, or lodging. A private contractor maintained meal and lodging facilities onsite. Employees were responsible for procuring transportation, meals, and occasionally overnight lodging when they had to work overtime. •Should Taxpayers be permitted to exclude their per diem allowances? See Commissioner v. Kowalski, 434 U.S. 77 (1977), supra. •Should Taxpayers be permitted to deduct the cost of their travel? •Should Taxpayers be permitted to deduct the cost of their meals? •Should Taxpayers be permitted to deduct the cost of their lodging? •See Coombs v. Commissioner, 608 F.2d 1269 (9th Cir. 1979). United States v. Correll, 389 U.S. 299 (1967) MR. JUSTICE STEWART delivered the opinion of the Court. The Commissioner of Internal Revenue has long maintained that a taxpayer traveling on business may deduct the cost of his meals only if his trip requires him to stop for sleep or rest. The question presented here is the validity of that rule. The respondent in this case was a traveling salesman for a wholesale grocery company in Tennessee. [footnote omitted] He customarily left home early in the morning, ate breakfast and lunch on the road, and returned home in time for dinner. In his income tax returns for 1960 and 1961, he deducted the cost of his morning and noon meals as “traveling expenses” incurred in the pursuit of his business “while away from home” under [I.R.C.] § 162(a)(2) ...121 Because the respondent’s daily trips required neither sleep nor rest, the Commissioner disallowed the deductions, ruling that the cost of the respondent’s meals was a “personal, living” expense under § 262 [footnote omitted], rather than a travel expense under § 162(a)(2). The respondent paid the tax, sued for a refund in the District Court, and there received a favorable jury verdict.122 The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed, holding that the Commissioner’s sleep or rest rule is not “a valid regulation under the present statute.” In order to resolve a conflict among the circuits on this recurring question of federal income tax administration, [footnote omitted] we granted certiorari. Under § 162(a)(2), taxpayers “traveling ... away from home in the pursuit of trade or business” may deduct the total amount “expended for meals and lodging.”123 As a result, even the taxpayer who incurs substantial hotel and restaurant expenses because of the special demands of business travel receives something of a windfall, for at least part of what he spends on meals represents a personal living expense that other taxpayers must bear without receiving any deduction at all.124 Not surprisingly, therefore, Congress did not extend the special benefits of § 162(a)(2) to every conceivable situation involving business travel. It made the total cost of meals and lodging deductible only if incurred in the course of travel that takes the taxpayer “away from home.” The problem before us involves the meaning of that limiting phrase. In resolving that problem, the Commissioner has avoided the wasteful litigation and continuing uncertainty that would inevitably accompany any purely case-by-case approach to the question of whether a particular taxpayer was “away from home” on a particular day. [footnote omitted] Rather than requiring “every meal-purchasing taxpayer to take pot luck in the courts,” [footnote omitted] the Commissioner has consistently construed travel “away from home” to exclude all trips requiring neither sleep nor rest,125 regardless of how many cities a given trip may have touched, [footnote omitted] how many miles it may have covered,126 or how many hours it may have consumed. [footnote omitted] By so interpreting the statutory phrase, the Commissioner has achieved not only ease and certainty of application, but also substantial fairness, for the sleep or rest rule places all one-day travelers on a similar tax footing, rather than discriminating against intracity travelers and commuters, who, of course, cannot deduct the cost of the meals they eat on the road. See Commissioner v. Flowers, 326 U.S. 465. Any rule in this area must make some rather arbitrary distinctions [footnote omitted], but at least the sleep or rest rule avoids the obvious inequity of permitting the New Yorker who makes a quick trip to Washington and back, missing neither his breakfast nor his dinner at home, to deduct the cost of his lunch merely because he covers more miles than the salesman who travels locally and must finance all his meals without the help of the Federal Treasury. [footnote omitted] And the Commissioner’s rule surely makes more sense than one which would allow the respondent in this case to deduct the cost of his breakfast and lunch simply because he spends a greater percentage of his time at the wheel than the commuter who eats breakfast on his way to work and lunch a block from his office. The Court of Appeals nonetheless found in the “plain language of the statute” an insuperable obstacle to the Commissioner’s construction. We disagree. The language of the statute – “meals and lodging ... away from home” – is obviously not self-defining. [footnote omitted] And to the extent that the words chosen by Congress cut in either direction, they tend to support, rather than defeat, the Commissioner’s position, for the statute speaks of “meals and lodging” as a unit, suggesting – at least arguably – that Congress contemplated a deduction for the cost of meals only where the travel in question involves lodging as well. [footnote omitted] Ordinarily, at least, only the taxpayer who finds it necessary to stop for sleep or rest incurs significantly higher living expenses as a direct result of his business travel,127 and Congress might well have thought that only taxpayers in that category should be permitted to deduct their living expenses while on the road.128 ... Alternatives to the Commissioner’s sleep or rest rule are, of course, available. [footnote omitted] Improvements might be imagined. [footnote omitted] But we do not sit as a committee of revision to perfect the administration of the tax laws. Congress has delegated to the Commissioner, not to the courts, the task of prescribing “all needful rules and regulations for the enforcement” of the Internal Revenue Code. 26 U.S.C. § 7805(a). In this area of limitless factual variations, “it is the province of Congress and the Commissioner, not the courts, to make the appropriate adjustments.” Commissioner v. Stidger, 386 U.S. 287, 296. The role of the judiciary in cases of this sort begins and ends with assuring that the Commissioner’s regulations fall within his authority to implement the congressional mandate in some reasonable manner. Because the rule challenged here has not been shown deficient on that score, the Court of Appeals should have sustained its validity. The judgment is therefore Reversed. MR. JUSTICE MARSHALL took no part in the consideration or decision of this case. MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS, with whom MR. JUSTICE BLACK and MR. JUSTICE FORTAS concur, dissenting. The statutory words “while away from home,” § 162(a)(2), may not, in my view, be shrunken to “overnight” by administrative construction or regulations. “Overnight” injects a time element in testing deductibility, while the statute speaks only in terms of geography. As stated by the Court of Appeals: “In an era of supersonic travel, the time factor is hardly relevant to the question of whether or not travel and meal expenses are related to the taxpayer’s business, and cannot be the basis of a valid regulation under the present statute.” Correll v. United States, 369 F.2d 87, 89-90. I would affirm the judgment below. Notes and Questions: 1. Is this an appropriate area for a bright line rule that may unfairly “catch” some taxpayers? 2. Read the instruction that the federal district court gave to the jury (in a footnote). Does it seem that the standard resembles the standard that the Court later adopted for § 119? 3. Under § 162(a)(2), how strong must the nexus be between the meals and a business purpose? See the Court’s last footnote. Does your answer make the approach of the commissioner seem more reasonable? 4. Did the majority’s statement of the Commissioner’s rule require an “overnight” stay – as Justice Douglas claimed in his dissent? 5. F.M. Williams was a railroad conductor with more than forty years of service with the Atlanta and West Point Railroad and the Western Railway of Alabama. Every other day Williams got up shortly after five in the morning, left his house in Montgomery, Alabama, in time to arrive at the railroad station about 6:45 a.m., attended to duties at the station, left Montgomery on the Crescent at 7:40 a.m., arrived in Atlanta, Georgia, at 12:15 p.m., took six hours off, returned to duty in time to leave Atlanta at 6:15 p.m. on the Piedmont, pulled in to Montgomery at 10:15 p.m., left the Piedmont, and reached home about midnight. It is a long, hard day. The railroad never ordered Williams to rent a room in Atlanta, nor required him to sleep during the layover period. For years, however, because he felt he needed sleep and rest in Atlanta before his return run, Williams rented a reasonably priced room in the Gordon Hotel, a small hotel near the railroad station. At the hotel he had lunch and dinner, rested and slept, bathed and freshened up before boarding the Piedmont. He had the same room for eight years. His superiors knew that he could always be reached in Atlanta at the Gordon Hotel; taxpayer was subject to call at all times. In 1955 Captain Williams incurred expenses of $796 for meals, lodging, and tips at the Gordon Hotel during his layover in Atlanta. •Should Williams be permitted to deduct the expenses that he incurred at the Gordon Hotel? •What issues (sub-issues) do these facts raise? •See Williams v. Patterson, 286 F.2d 333 (5th Cir. 1961). 5a. Taxpayer B was a ferryboat captain. He worked in the Puget Sound area of Washington State. During the summer months, he typically worked 18-hour days for seven consecutive days. Then he would have seven consecutive days off. His schedule was the same in the winter, except that he would typically captain a ship from Seattle to Victoria. The return voyage would be six hours later. During the six-hour layover, he would take a nap on a cot provided by his employer. He would also purchase one or two meals. •Should taxpayer B be permitted to deduct the cost of his meals? •See Bissonnette v. Commissioner, 127 T.C. 124 (2006).
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