I Want to Travel!

NedRN · Jan 24, 2022

Many, if not most hospitals restrict travelers from their area. You might understand if they didn't do that, 100% of their staff nurses might become local travelers. Making up a non-local address is akin to fraud, and certainly is criminal if extended to create a tax home so that you can reduce taxes you would otherwise owe on "tax-free" stipends from travel companies. Don't mess with the IRS, and state tax agencies can be even more frightening. Not worth it.

Your tax home is a general area with a number of substantiating factors but specifically and most importantly is a residence that you maintain full time no matter where you work. When you work away from home you incur business expenses that are in addition to maintaining your tax home. For example housing costs at the remote location are an additional expense that the IRS recognizes and allows you to deduct on your tax return. Details on how agencies are allowed to pay you a tax free housing stipend (instead of you personally deducting these expenses) are based on this but would require a long explanation on how and why they can.

Just accept that it does work, but it still requires that you maintain a tax home and work away from it and incur extra costs from duplicated expenses of remote housing. So commuting from home to a travel assignment is no different from a staff nurse doing the same thing, and never, even with a 100 mile commute, entitles you to tax benefits.

You will have to fill out a agency supplied housing questionnaire designed to protect the agency from the IRS (but not you) should you accept tax free stipends. Easy to cheat on, but if you are audited, you will have to pay back taxes, interest, and penalties, and would be subject to possible criminal prosecution (unlikely). But depending on how long one accepts tax free stipends illegitimately, the amounts could be life changing. Again, not worth it with the risks much higher than the rewards.