- 14 - effect at the time each respective revenue procedure was released. Maersk furnished petitioner with lodging and meals without charge while he was working on its vessels during the years in issue. Although petitioner did not pay for his meals while at sea or while docked in foreign ports, he argues that he is entitled to deduct the full M&IE per diem rate for those days for which he must include income earned in international waters. Petitioner asserts that the applicable revenue procedures permit him to deduct the full applicable M&IE rate for work-related travel even though all of his meals were provided to him free of charge by Maersk, but his only argument in support of this assertion rests on the absence of any explicit requirement in Internal Revenue Service publications that a taxpayer actually pay for his meals in order to qualify for the standard meal allowance deduction. Petitioner argues further that this issue is novel to the Court. We disagree. In Johnson v. Commissioner, supra, the taxpayer, also a merchant seaman, deducted the full Federal M&IE rates on his return even though all of his meals were provided to him free of charge by his employer. We held that, because the taxpayer’s actual expenses consisted solely of incidental expenses, his use of the M&IE rates to calculate his deductions for business expenses due to travel away from home was limited toPage: Previous 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 NextLast modified: March 27, 2008