Hello, here is my story. I worked for company A till Jan 06. Then I moved to company B n got laid off. Both of them in San Jose. After I got laid off, I left SJ and went back to my hometown at Sacramento.

Half a month after I got laid off, company A needed a person for a 2 month project. So I decided to work for them as a contractor. As a result, I had to rent a temporary room in SJ and drive back and forth from Sacramento to SJ once a week.

Now it is a tax season and I just received the 1099-Misc form. My question is: can I claim the rent that I paid for those 2 months into my business expense? What about the mileage that I drove back and forth from Sacramento to SJ with those 2 months (not counting the commuting miles which were from my temporarily rented place to company A)?

Since I live in Sacramento and have to work in SJ for a temporary assignment, I should have those mileage deductible, rite?

Just for clarification, after the project ended, I returned the rented place and went back to Sacramento.

Thanks a lot.

If you WORKED in Sacramento and had to work in SJ on temporary assignment, then the costs of traveling between the locations (and the rent) would have been deductible business expenses. However, because you had no "tax home" (place where you work on a regular basis), it is impossible for you to be traveling away from your tax home. All of the costs are nondeductible personal expenses.

I believe IntlTax's interpretation is correct.

Had you done ANY work in Sacramento to establish it as your tax home, you would have been able to claim your daily living expenses in SJ on Schedule C. Since you did not, you are SOL.

Thanks for the responses.
What about the facts that I still have family living in my place at Sacramento and I have to support them? Also, sometimes I connect to my work place from Sacramento to work at home (for the regular jobs as well as the contracting jobs). Do that help to consider Sacramento is my tax home?

Your tax home is generally identified as where your job is located. If you had worked as an independent contractor before in Sacramento and had established a home or rented an apartment which you retained while working in San Jose, then you would have an argument that Sacramento was your tax home.

Given your circumstances, I would be reluctant to give you the tax writeoff.