Peurifoy v. Commissioner
The Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that construction workers could not deduct their meals, lodging, and travel costs from a months-long out-of-town job, because the tax court's finding that the job was merely "temporary" rather than "indefinite" was clearly wrong on this record.
The decision leaves in place a fact-specific test for when workers who live away from their families for work can treat their living costs as deductible business travel expenses, without resolving broader legal questions about the meaning of the tax code provision.
How it got here: The Tax Court ruled for the workers, the Court of Appeals reversed, and the Supreme Court granted review to consider the deduction rule.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Three construction workers took jobs at a work site in Kinston, North Carolina lasting between about 8 and 20 months, while keeping their permanent homes elsewhere in North Carolina. On their 1953 tax returns, each deducted what they spent on meals and lodging at Kinston and on travel home after the job ended. The IRS disallowed these deductions.
The question before the Court
Could construction workers deduct their meals, lodging, and travel costs while working for many months at a distant job site as ordinary business travel expenses?
Why it matters
Workers who travel for extended stretches to take construction or similar jobs away from their permanent homes may find it harder to deduct their meals, lodging, and travel costs, since courts will scrutinize whether the job was genuinely short-term. The ruling underscores that these disputes often turn on case-by-case factual findings rather than a clear, predictable legal rule.
What changes now
The ruling is final on the merits: the workers' deductions remain disallowed, and the appeals court's judgment stands. The Court did not address the broader legal questions about how the tax code provision should apply that it originally granted review to consider, leaving those questions for future cases. The narrow, fact-specific 'temporary versus indefinite' inquiry continues to govern similar disputes.
What this does not decide
The Court expressly declined to resolve the broader legal questions about how the travel-expense deduction provision applies that it had originally agreed to review. It also did not address whether 'home' should mean the taxpayer's family residence rather than the job site, an issue the dissent said was squarely presented but left undecided.
Concurrences and dissents
How the Justices voted
Dissent (1). Justice Douglas (author).
Dissent — Justice Douglas
“It would be an intolerable burden for them to uproot their families whenever they change jobs, if those jobs happen to take them to a different locality.”Douglas's argument for why traveling construction workers should get the deduction.
Justice Douglas argued this was not a pure factual question but a mixed question of law and fact turning on the meaning of 'home' in the tax statute, which the majority avoided deciding. He argued construction workers who must travel from job to job cannot reasonably be expected to relocate their families each time, so they should be treated as living 'away from home' for tax purposes. He also faulted the temporary/indefinite distinction as an unwarranted gloss not found in the statute or prior precedent. Read the full dissent →
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court applied the general rule from a prior decision that unreimbursed travel expenses are deductible under the relevant tax code provision only when required by 'the exigencies of business,' meaning the travel must be a genuine necessity of the job rather than a personal choice.
- The Court noted that the tax agency had not challenged an exception carved out by the Tax Court allowing deductions when a worker's job away from home is 'temporary' rather than 'indefinite,' so the only question left was whether that exception applied here.
- Because the tax agency did not contest the exception's validity, the case turned solely on a factual question: whether these workers' employment at the distant site counted as 'temporary' or 'indefinite.'
- The Tax Court had found the jobs were temporary, but the appeals court, reviewing that same record, called the finding 'clearly erroneous' under the applicable standard for reviewing factual findings.
- The Court held that when an appeals court has fairly assessed the record in overturning a lower tribunal's factual finding, the Supreme Court will not second-guess that assessment, so the appeals court's judgment was left in place.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Distinguishes Commissioner v. Flowers (326 U. S. 465)
The Court applied Flowers' general rule but left its unresolved questions, like the meaning of 'home,' undecided.