I have a fairly complex tax situation. I am a US national, and I worked for a construction company in Seattle from January to August of 2006. I then relocated to Washington DC for a three month internship with a national magazine for which I received no compensation. At the end of December, I relocated to New York City. In January of 2007, I started working as a freelance writer and editor.

Questions:
Can I deduct my rent, meals, utilities etc. for the time I spent as an unpaid intern in DC? In college I worked for various publications, so it wasn't an entirely new field.

Can I deduct my travel expenses to DC?

Can I deduct my travel expenses to NYC? I plan to work in New York for at least the next two years.

Thank you very much.

You can claim your DC travel and living expenses as employee business expenses because you can argue that the internship was the springboard in your career as a writer and editor.

It's an itemized deduction which must be documented on Form 2106, but I would have no problem defending these deductions before an IRS auditor.