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Edited version of your written advice
Authorisation Number: 1012673368817
Ruling
Subject: Meals and household items
Question
Are you entitled to a deduction for living expenses and household items?
Answer
No.
This ruling applies for the following period
Year ended 30 June 2014
The scheme commenced on
1 July 2013
Relevant facts
You are an employee.
Your employer sent you from the location you had been working at directly to another location where you worked for approximately three months.
Your employer provided you with accommodation.
The house was not set up with the usual household items and you purchased those that you needed.
After you returned to your family home at the end of your time at the location, you left the household items in the house.
The cost of food at the local supermarket was expensive.
Relevant legislative provisions
Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 Section 8-1
Reasons for decision
Section 8-1 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 allows a deduction for all losses and outgoings to the extent to which they are incurred in gaining or producing assessable income except where the outgoings are of a capital, private or domestic nature, or relate to the earning of exempt income.
Meal expenses are normally private or domestic in character. However, where a taxpayer is travelling away from home overnight in connection with an income producing activity, meal expenses may be deductible.
In order to consider the deductibility of meal expenses the deductibility of travel expenses must be firstly considered.
A distinction is made between travel to work and travel on work. It is only if the duties of the job require a taxpayer to travel in the course of undertaking their work duties that the taxpayer's expenses can be deducted (Taylor v Provan 1975 AC 194).
A deduction is generally not allowable for the cost of travel by an employee between home and their normal workplace as it is considered to be a private expense. The cost of this travel is incurred to put you in a position to perform your duties of employment, rather than in the performance of those duties. (Taxation Ruling TR 95/34 Income tax: employees carrying out itinerant work - deductions, allowances and reimbursements for transport expenses).
While we accept that you needed to buy household items to use in the house, these are none the less, considered to be private expenses and therefore are not deductible.
Your normal workplace is where your employer has provided you with the accommodation. You are considered to be travelling to work rather than on work. As you are travelling to work the expenses you incur for meals are not work related expenses and are considered to be private. Accordingly, a deduction for these expenses is not allowable.