Wolff v. Commissioner, Docket No. 20942.
| Decision Date | 24 January 1950 |
| Docket Number | Docket No. 20942. |
| Citation | 9 TCM (CCH) 55 |
| Parties | Kurt G. Wolff v. Commissioner. |
| Court | U.S. Tax Court |
Kurt G. Wolff, pro se. Graham Loving, Jr., Esq., for the respondent.
The Commissioner has determined a deficiency in petitioner's income tax for the calendar year 1944 in the amount of $31. This deficiency is due to two adjustments made by the Commissioner in the income tax return filed by petitioner for the year 1944. These adjustments are explained in the deficiency notice as follows:
Unallowable deductions and additional income
(a) Salary ........................... $100.00
(b) Excise taxes and contributions.... 29.00
The Commissioner explained the foregoing adjustments as follows:
The petition does not assign any error as to the foregoing adjustments. The petition does assign errors, as follows:
The petitioner resides at 156 Sherman Avenue, New York, New York. His income tax return for the year 1944 was filed with the Collector for the 21st District of New York.
In 1943 petitioner was employed by the Conway Home Improvement Company, Inc. of Syracuse, New York, as home insulation engineer. His duties were to find prospective customers, home owners, survey their homes and sell them insulation to prevent loss of heat and to protect the homes from cold air and draft. He received for his compensation a stipulated percentage of the amount payable to the company under the contracts, with the agreement that he had to pay his own transportation and the cost of his own meals and lodging. He was selected to open branch offices for the firm and train suitable personnel and this work took him first to Oneida, New York, where he remained for eight months in 1943. From there he was sent to Utica, New York, for the same purpose. There he found a suitable man acquainted with the business. This man was chosen and established as the firm's representative there and petitioner left after four months to establish an office in Ithaca, New York, in January 1944, to pursue his work with the Conway Company. Petitioner remained in Ithaca until in April 1947, when he severed his connection with the Conway firm.
Two factors prevented petitioner from establishing a home for his family in Ithaca during the more than three years while he was there. One was the uncertain length of his stay and the second was the housing shortage in Ithaca. In Ithaca he employed the services of real estate agents and newspaper advertising in trying to find accommodations for his family to live, but to no avail. While in Ithaca petitioner lived as a roomer in a rooming house and took his meals at restaurants and other eating places. Petitioner's family during this time remained at their residence in New York City and petitioner visited them occasionally.
Petitioner, in his income tax return for the calendar year 1944, claimed a deduction of $315.37 for repair and maintenance and operation of his automobile in the pursuance of his trade or business. This deduction was allowed by the Commissioner and is not in controversy here.
Petitioner later filed an amended return for the year 1944 in which he claimed a deduction for meals and lodging while away from home of $1,295. This deduction claimed on petitioner's amended return the Commissioner has not allowed. Petitioner claims such deduction in his petition. Petitioner during the year 1944 expended as much as $865 for meals while living at his post of duty in Ithaca, New York and during such time he also expended as much as $385 for lodging in said city. From the time petitioner came to Ithaca in January 1944 until he left there in April 1947, during which time he incurred the expenses for meals and lodging shown above for the year 1944, he was at his regular post of duty as an employee of Conway Home Improvement Company. Such expenditures were not "traveling expenses (including the entire amount expended for meals and lodging) while away from home in the pursuit of a trade or business" within the meaning of section 23(a)(1)(A) of the Internal Revenue Code.
Petitioner has not contested the adjustments which resulted in the deficiency determined by respondent for 1944. However, in his petition petitioner claims a deduction of $1,295 as an outlay in 1944 for meals and lodging expended in Ithaca, New York, while working there as an employee of the Conway Home Improvement Company of Syracuse, New York. Petitioner did not claim these deductions on his original income tax return for 1944 but...
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