Travel expense deduction to non-primary hospital B?

[TheGipper]

My group covers 4 major hospitals as part of two separate hospital systems, which are separated by about 40 miles, and several outpatient imaging centers.

I typically keep a mileage log and submit to group partnership MERP all INTERhospital travel (i.e. when travel from site A to site B in same day) or when travel from a hospital to another site for a business meeting in the same day, but do not include my commute miles from home to hospital A or from hospital B to home.

If hospital A is clearly my primary place of work (work there 90% of time), would it be permissable for me to submit travel miles when I work at hospital B or one of the remote imaging centers but without interday travel (i.e. just commute to non-primary hospital B and home)?

I'm guessing no, but it is not clear to me after reading IRS pubs

[DMFA]

Might that count as a "temporary work location" to which you can deduct travel to and from home?

Pub 463, Fig. B is a useful illustration.

[TheGipper]

That is the crux of my question. Does a rarely visited secondary hospital work site get the same treatment as a "temporary work site" per that IRS publication.

[DMFA]

TheGipper wrote:

That is the crux of my question. Does a rarely visited secondary hospital work site get the same treatment as a “temporary work site” per that IRS publication.

Click to expand...

That's what I did when I had off-site rotations for one month out of the year, but I wasn't going back.

Temporary work location: A place where your work assignment is realistically expected to last (and does in fact last) one year or less. Unless you have a regular place of business, you can only deduct your transportation expenses to a temporary work location outside your metropolitan area.

So I'd imagine if you're only there some of the time, but are planning on being there some of the time for over a year, then you probably couldn't deduct it.

[TheGipper]

Thanks. That was my take too. Would be interested to hear Johanna's read.