I travel for work and am reimbursed for housing by my company, but reimbursement is taxed (I generally get 60% of the reimbursement). Can I claim what taxes take out?

[Carl]

Need more details. By "I travel for work", are you saying that you are reimbursed for lodging by your employer, for what I would "assume" is a short period of time at any one location? If so, are you maintaining a residence on a permanent, never changing basis elsewhere?

[pienkos]

I am a travel nurse and am on assignment in varying locations for an average of 13-week contracts, while maintaining my tax home in another state. I was out of state for a 26-week contract in which I maintained a lease in the travel state (rent and utilities), and was reimbursed a set amount each month. My rent and utilities accrued an excess of ~$200 per month before taxation of my stipend, but after taxes totaled roughly ~$700 per month in excess.

[Carl]

@TaxGuyBill what I thought was a snowball, has turned into an avalanche for me. 🙂

[pienkos]

I should also mention that most travel companies provide housing stipends under non-taxable income on each payment to their employees as per the GSA guidelines, but this particular company I worked for in 2016 was a non-profit organization, and thus was not able to disperse non-taxed income to its employees, adding to all the confusion.

[TaxGuyBill]

Assuming you are an Employee (rather than an Independent Contractor), your out-of-town expenses while you are away from your Tax Home are deductible as 'Job Expenses' in TurboTax.

Make sure you ARE away from your "Tax Home", as Travel Nurses are often "Itinerant" or their Tax Home moves with them.
<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://www.irs.gov/publications/p463/ch01.html#en_US_2015_publink100033754">https://www.irs.gov/pub...>

You can use the GSA Per Diem for MEALS, but you can only use the ACTUAL expenses for your Lodging.

Unfortunately, the Employee Job Expense deduction is in a category that is limited to the amount OVER 2% of your income which will reduce the deduction.  If you don't otherwise Itemize your deductions on Schedule A, your deduction will further be reduced or even eliminated.

As a side note, I don't see why a non-profit organization couldn't have given you a tax-free reimbursement.  I suspect that they  may not know what they were doing.  However, I don't do much with non-profits, so I could be wrong about that.

[Opus 17]

A non-profit can have an accountable plan if they want to do the work.  A non-accountable plan is less paperwork for them.

[Opus 17]

Any company (non-profit or not) can reimburse employee expenses under one of two plans.

1. An accountable plan -- you are only reimbursed for actual qualifying expenses and you must submit receipts to the company to prove your expenses.  Accountable reimbursements are not taxable, and can't be used for a tax-deduction since the money was never taxed in the first place (double dipping).

2. A non-accountable plan -- the company can pay anything they want; all or part of your expenses, or a flat rate, for qualified or non-qualified travel, and with or without receipts, but the reimbursements are taxable and must be included in your 1099-MISC or W-2. Since the reimbursements are taxable income, you are free to deduct qualified expenses under the usual rules, using form 2106 and schedule A.  Since this is an itemized deduction subject to the 2% rule, your actual tax benefit will be reduced depending on your other tax facts.

Qualifying expenses for work-related travel are covered in publication 463. Generally, the travel must be (1) away from your tax home, and (2) temporary.  You can deduct actual travel expenses, actual lodging expenses, and 50% of food or 50% of the meals per diem rate for the location you worked in.  https://www.irs.gov/uac/about-publication-463