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with him at his office, and sometimes he would travel elsewhere
for meetings. Expenses incurred for incidental or occasional
trade or business use are not deductible even if the home office
was used exclusively for such purpose. See, e.g., Cally v.
Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 1983-203; Roth v. Commissioner, T.C.
Memo. 1981-699. Petitioners have not established that the
exception to section 280A(a) applies, and respondent’s
disallowance of the deduction for utility expenses claimed for
the home office is sustained.5
Petitioners also included under insurance expenses a portion
of their homeowner’s insurance expense allocated to Mr. Brown’s
home office and life insurance for Mr. Brown. If insurance
expenses are directly related to business overhead, then they
constitute deductible business expenses under section 162.
Blaess v. Commissioner, 28 T.C. 710, 714-715 (1957); see also
Green v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 1989-599. The life insurance
for Mr. Brown is not directly related to his law practice, and
the amount representing the homeowner’s insurance expense was not
substantiated; therefore, respondent’s disallowance of the
claimed deduction for insurance expenses is sustained.
5 If the remaining amount of the utility expenses were
properly substantiated and thus allowable, the deduction for
those expenses would have been limited by sec. 280A(c)(5) not to
exceed the excess of the gross income “derived from such use” of
the home office in the trade or business, reduced by other
expenses of the trade or business.
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