Tax home ?

[maolin]

Greetings, I have been doing a ton of research & reading lately about travel nursing and am about the take the plunge. So I'll likely be a regular poster in the travel forum now. Travel nursing seems to be the perfect means to our end (end = early retirement, hopefully not the celestial kind ) - try out several West Coast locations to determine where to put the solar-powered-ecofriendly-off-the-grid-earth-sheltered-hobbit-hole-dream-house-and-Border-Collie-farm.

I cohabitate with my pseudospouse. We've been happily UNmarried for 10 yrs. We intend to keep our house in Austin as home base and return in between assignments until we are ready to sell & permanently relocate (love Austin, but can't handle one more summer here & have always been drawn to the West coast). My partner bought the house a few months before we met and so it's only in his name. I have never paid him rent or split the house payments because it's paid in full. He is our breadwinner & also takes care of all the household expenses. (yes, I realize how very lucky I am to have found The Perfect Man! :redbeathe) We've been cohabitating for about 8 years now. I know that I'll need to keep my TXDL, insurance & vote here in Austin in order to keep Austin as home.

Since I don't pay for housing, I'm not on the deed and have no utilities in my name, can I still claim it as my tax home? Will my housing stipends still be tax free or taxable because the Austin house wouldn't be considered my tax home?

TIA and thanks for all the good info in the stickies & the forum - I feel very well prepared for this exciting new angle.

[bagladyrn, RN]

Actually sounds kind of "iffy" as far as a tax home for you since the whole point of the "tax-free" money is that it is for duplication of expenses while away from your permanent home for work. You'd have a tough time justifying this if you were audited.

I'd suggest running this by a tax professional who specializes in traveling professionals. There is one who posts on here and other sites named Traveltax. You might want to pm him and see if he'd chime in here with an opinion.