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(1st Cir. 1984); Neal v. Commissioner, 681 F.2d 1157, 1158 (9th
Cir. 1982), affg. per curiam T.C. Memo. 1981-407; Kasun v. United
States, 671 F.2d 1059, 1061 (7th Cir. 1982); Williams v.
Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 1990-467; Epperson v. Commissioner, T.C.
Memo. 1985-382.
In Epperson, the taxpayer was an ironworker who, during
1981, commuted daily to various job sites from his home in
Seffner, Florida:
Round trip
Job site Number of days mileage from Seffner
New Wales 92 44
Palatka 26 300
St. Petersburg 43 30
Crystal River 37 160
After finding that all of the jobs were temporary, rather than
indefinite, we held that the taxpayer’s commuting expenses to the
job sites in Palatka and Crystal River were deductible, but his
commuting expenses to the job sites in New Wales and St.
Petersburg were not deductible because they “were clearly within
the general area of the petitioner’s residence”. Id.
Other courts have likewise imposed a requirement that for a
taxpayer’s commuting expenses to be deductible the taxpayer’s
residence must be distant from the temporary job site. In Dahood
v. United States, supra at 48, the Court of Appeals for the First
Circuit explained the rationale for permitting the deduction of
commuting expenses to temporary job sites:
A judicial exception has been carved out of this
general rule [that daily commuting expenses are not
deductible] to cover instances when people commute long
distances to their workplaces for business, rather than
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