"Commuting Miles" ?

Commuting miles are the miles driven from your home to the first work location of the day, and those driven from the last work location of the day back home. They are non-deductible.

I never heard this. Perhaps the picture on page 185 of pub 17

What if it's not a "work location", but just a meeting with a client at his business or in a coffee shop, etc (All real work being done in the home office).

Following my own post, I found this: "If you have an office in your home that qualifies as a principal place of business, you can deduct your daily transporta- tion costs between your home and another work location in the same trade or business. "

So it sounds like I can deduct all travel as stated above.

Correct me if I am wrong. I will follow up with another scenario for someone else once I am comfortable with this first option :-)

The statement is true but only if your home is your principal or regular place of work. This requires you pass the "exclusive and regular use test". You can find a definition of this in IRS Pub 587. I will also tell you that this is a highly litigated area of tax court. The test that can be the killer is the exclusive use test. There is practically no wiggle room on this test other than a few de minimis uses that the tax court has allowed.

I believe that is incorrect. The exclusive use test under section

Section 280A(f)(4) says,

"Nothing in this section shall be construed to disallow any deduction allowable under section 162(a)(2) (or any deduction which meets the tests of section 162(a)(2) but is allowable under another provision of this title) by reason of the taxpayer?s being away from home in the pursuit of a trade or business (other than the trade or business of renting dwelling units)."

To me that says that if the taxpayer has a legitimate home office, even if he doesn't meet the requirements of section 280A, he can deduct mileage to and from the office.

By the way, if OP stores any inventory in his home office, that portion meets the home office requirement even if it does not satisfy the exclusive use requirement.

You are misinterpreting the meaning. The key words are "taxpayer's being away from home". We are discussing a taxpayer who is not traveling away from home.

Exclusive and regular use is what makes your home your regular place of business. If it is not your regular place of business than driving from your home to get to work is commuting.

I thought they had loosened up on the home office deduction(?) I don't actually take it... when they got nasty about it 15 or so years ago I decided it wasn't worth the hassle for the small amount of space that is "business only" in my home.

Where is the best place to read what "exclusive and regular" now means? Are there any minimum space requirements and/or must a full room be dedicated to the use? Do I raise a red flag by NOT taking the home office deduction?

Yes, there is now a simplified method of determing a home office deduction - it is basically a flat rate based on square footage, rather than calculating the percentage of actual expenses (such as rent, mortgage interest, property taxes, utilities etc.) The exclusive use requirement is still there, though.

For more information see Publication 587:

Some auditors will tell you it has to be a whole room, though that's not really the rule. If there is a space that you use only for business purposes, and you do business there regularly (more than occasionally) you may qualify for the deduction. The links I provided above should give you more information if you want it.

This is another area that is well litigated. I just don't have the references handy. It is the "exclusive" rule that causes the most problems. (That's not to say that "regular use" isn't also a problem for some taxpayers.) The IRS has been very hard on this point. The space that is used does not have to be a room nor does it have to space in a room that is partitioned. It has to be an area that is used for only one purpose.... your business. Any use of that space for personal reasons would violate the exclusive rule. Some exceptions have been carved out for de minimis reasons. e.g., an individual who had to walk through the space to get his bathroom. The mere fact that the IRS would argue that walking through the area for a personal reason violates the rule, tells you how strongly the IRS feels on this issue.

On 2014-03-08 10:44, Alan wrote: [...]

I think this could be taken to ridiculous extremes. My own home office in fact *is* a partitioned area of a larger room, and in fact you *do* have to walk through it to get to a bathroom, so it's good to know I've got some support for my position!

Anytime a human is present in a work area, there are going to be personal, non-business activities, such as eating, nose-blowing, day-dreaming, communicating with others on non-business topics, etc.