Can I Deduct Meals and Travel Expenses from Home Office to Client Locations Within My Tax Home?

Yes, you absolutely can deduct those transportation expenses when traveling directly between your home office and client locations! Since your home office qualifies as your principal place of business for your LLC, those subway and taxi fares are legitimate business expenses. For the subway trips without receipts, keep a detailed log with dates, purpose of trips, destinations, and amounts spent. A simple spreadsheet or even a notes app works fine - just be consistent. The IRS understands not every expense generates a receipt, especially public transit. If you make stops along the way, it gets a bit tricky. If the stop is business-related (picking up supplies for a client), the entire trip remains deductible. If it's personal (grocery shopping), technically you should only deduct the business portion. Realistically, minor detours don't usually cause issues, but significant personal side trips should be accounted for. Regarding meals - you can deduct business meals when you're away from your principal place of business (your home office), but they're generally subject to the 50% limitation. You need to have a business purpose though - just grabbing lunch alone because you're hungry doesn't qualify. The meal should have a clear business connection or purpose. And no, you can't claim the standard meal allowance on days you don't actually eat while visiting clients. That's only for overnight travel away from your tax home.

I was in a similar situation last year with my consulting business and discovered this amazing tool that saved me so much headache with tracking business expenses. I used https://taxr.ai to scan all my receipts and automatically categorize them as business vs personal expenses. It even flagged potential audit risks for me! For those subway fares without receipts, the app let me log them with notes about client visits that tied directly to my calendar. When I wasn't sure if something was deductible (like those client site meals), it walked me through the IRS rules and made recommendations. Seriously saved me hours of research and worry. The best part was at tax time - it generated a perfect report showing all my business travel sorted by client that I could hand directly to my accountant. No more trying to remember which subway trip was for which client months later!

I was totally skeptical about expense tracking apps when someone recommended https://taxr.ai to me. I had a stack of receipts in a shoebox and subway charges all over my bank statements. But after trying it, I'm now a convert. The thing that surprised me most was how it caught deductions I didn't know I could take. Like those quick lunch meetings with potential clients that I wasn't documenting properly. It actually found about $2,800 in additional deductions I would have missed. For the subway fares specifically, I just take a quick photo of the subway entrance when I'm heading to a client, and the app geo-tags it. My accountant said my documentation is now "audit-proof" compared to the mess I had before. Wish I had known about this for my previous years' returns!

If you're having trouble getting through to the IRS to confirm these deduction rules, try https://claimyr.com - it saved me hours of waiting on hold. I had similar questions about home office deductions and needed clarification directly from the IRS. After waiting on hold for 2+ hours and getting disconnected twice, I found this service that got me connected to an IRS agent in under 20 minutes. You can see how it works here: https://youtu.be/_kiP6q8DX5c The agent confirmed that transportation between a qualifying home office and client locations is deductible even within the same metropolitan area, exactly as you described. They also explained exactly what documentation I needed for small expenses without receipts. Getting this straight from the IRS gave me complete confidence in taking these deductions.

I need to apologize to everyone here. After being super skeptical about that Claimyr service, I actually tried it yesterday out of desperation. I'd been trying to get through to the IRS for THREE WEEKS about my home office deduction questions. Within 35 minutes, I was talking to an actual IRS agent who answered all my questions about transportation deductions between my home office and clients. They confirmed everything - yes, those subway fares are deductible when going directly to clients, and yes, I need to keep a log with dates and business purposes. The agent even gave me tips on how to properly document those tap-to-pay subway fares without receipts. For anyone struggling with the same issues as the OP, it's worth getting the official word directly from the IRS. I'm honestly shocked this worked so well after all my failed attempts.

Just wanted to add something important that nobody's mentioned yet. To deduct those transportation expenses, your home office MUST qualify as your principal place of business for that LLC. That means it needs to be used exclusively and regularly for business purposes. If you're using that desk/computer for anything personal, or if you don't use it regularly for business, the IRS could disallow all those related transportation deductions. The exclusive use requirement is pretty strict. Also, for those meals when visiting clients, remember you need to keep notes about the business purpose - just drinking alone at a bar because "shits kinda fucked" (as you colorfully put it) doesn't qualify as a business meal, even if you're stressed about client work!

If you're tracking all those small transit expenses, just get a dedicated credit card for your business! Makes life SO much easier come tax time. I have one card I only use for business expenses, and my accountant loves me for it. Also, pro tip: most transit systems now have apps or online accounts where you can see your trip history. I set up an account with my city's transit system, and I can download a monthly report of all my trips. I add notes to each business-related trip right away in a spreadsheet. My accountant said this is perfect documentation.