Can lunches be a deduction if your a field worker?

I'm a field service technician. I go from site to site %26/or house to house repairing computers.

My wife is a visiting nurse.

In the past our tax preparer deducted our lunches stating we were allowed since we didn't work out of an office.

This year I have a new tax preparer and I am told these are not eligible deductions.

Are field service workers allowed to deduct their lunches? I have since 1997. I was audited in 2004 %26 this was NOT an issue.

Has anything changed?

Can lunches be a deduction if your a field worker?noton

Sorry, but your former tax preparer was wrong and the new one is correct. You can not deduct meals taken in the vicinity of your tax home. Meals taken while traveling away from home overnight are deductible, limited to 50% of the actual cost. But merely working ''in the field'' doesn't get you a deduction.

If you were audited in 2004 then the audit was not focused on that part of your tax return -- or the auditor was half asleep and just assumed it was for meals taken while traveling but didn't question it.

Can lunches be a deduction if your a field worker?stinger

No, nothing changed. Your new preparer is correct - the old one took illegal deductions.

On an audit they usually look just at limited areas of your return, not at everything.