tax free if staying more than 1 year?

NedRN · Jan 24, 2016

Did you stay in the same housing?

Michi66 · Jan 24, 2016

No, I was in long beach and now in LA

NedRN · Jan 24, 2016

If you had stayed in your Long Beach housing, how long would it take you to commute to your new assignment? Do you have to take call?

Argo · Jan 24, 2016

My cpa tells me as long as I take regular trips and have family in my residence(wife and son) I can stay longer than the prescribed year. I still am not going to more than 11.5 months.

NedRN · Jan 24, 2016

You can of course stay as long as you like. But your tax home does shift after 12 months. 12.5 months is wise as technically travel time to and from the assignment counts towards the 12 months (although I doubt that would be an issue in an audit).

Get a new tax preparer Your guy may be missing the boat on other stuff too. Get a specialist such as TravelTax who knows the industry.

Argo · Jan 25, 2016

Travel tax said the same thing when I asked the question to the guy. I think it's in his faq section too. Regular travel to a primary residence that your family still lives In, son goes to school there, etc, etc. Again, that is a very small car be out of the general travel population. I'm not gonna be in the habit of staying longer than 6 months, this one I'm staying 11.5 total because of convenience and pay. I don't like poking bears, the irs is a big ass angry bear.

Michi66 · Jan 28, 2016

Thanks guys! Unfortunately it wasn't what I wanted to hear :). It's POSSIBLE to commute from Long Beach to Santa Monica, but not a life I want to live, even temporarily (although sure would've saved a lot of money).

I have met people who are local but still are "travelers" and maintain that you just can't work at the same hospital for over 12 months... And another traveler who thinks taking 3 weeks off in the middle of an assignment longer than a year counts as adequate time off. So I guess people are doing it all kinds of ways. I just want to extend for 3 weeks cause it's looking like I need to take 2 months off in the summer, and would like to work as long as possible. I do own an house at home and have traveled there for a week or 2 a few times.

NedRN · Jan 28, 2016

Exactly how long would the commute be? Depending on the time and route taken, it could be over an hour each way. That doesn't strike me as practical if you are working stacked 12 hour shifts. If you are on a 2 am to 2 pm shift, maybe. Absolutely not if you take call.

I'd try to document worst case commute from Long Beach to Santa Monica via Google maps or Waze, or perhaps some other internet resource that shows average commute times and just go with your extension. Keep the documentation in case of audit.

The other cases you mention have zero chance of winning if audited. You have a decent chance of winning against the IRS and your audit risk is low, at least your IRS audit risk. Worst case scenario is that California audits you, and without any income from other states last year (presumably), they might audit you based on your tax return. California has a presumption of residency after just 9 months of work and that will require a vigorous defense if audited to win. I have no way to tell what your risk might be there, but working a few weeks over a year is not going to change that particular risk. As you heard, some travelers are working for years in the same general place without having been audited (I strongly recommend not doing that, the reward for doing so is not worth even the slight risk of audit).

Good luck, and try not to worry. Typically you won't find out about an audit for at least a year.