If your husband is living out of town on a temporary work assignment, you can deduct his living expenses (rent, meals, and transportation) while he is spending time in the other city. The IRS defines a temporary work site as somewhere that you are assigned to work for a period that is not expected to last for more than one year. The site is considered temporary until there are facts and circumstances that indicate otherwise.
See the following from IRS Publication 463:
Temporary Assignment or Job
You may regularly work at your tax home and also work at another location. It may not be practical to return to your tax home from this other location at the end of each work day.
Temporary assignment vs. indefinite assignment. If your assignment or job away from your main place of work is temporary, your tax home doesn’t change. You are considered to be away from home for the whole period you are away from your main place of work. You can deduct your travel expenses if they otherwise qualify for deduction. Generally, a temporary assignment in a single location is one that is realistically expected to last (and does in fact last) for 1 year or less.
However, if your assignment or job is indefinite, the location of the assignment or job becomes your new tax home and you can’t deduct your travel expenses while there. An assignment or job in a single location is considered indefinite if it is realistically expected to last for more than 1 year, whether or not it actually lasts for more than 1 year.
If your assignment is indefinite, you must include in your income any amounts you receive from your employer for living expenses, even if they are called travel allowances and you account to your employer for them. You may be able to deduct the cost of relocating to your new tax home as a moving expense. See Pub. 521 for more information.
Determining temporary or indefinite. You must determine whether your assignment is temporary or indefinite when you start work. If you expect an assignment or job to last for 1 year or less, it is temporary unless there are facts and circumstances that indicate otherwise. An assignment or job that is initially temporary may become indefinite due to changed circumstances. A series of assignments to the same location, all for short periods but that together cover a long period, may be considered an indefinite assignment.
The following examples illustrate whether an assignment or job is temporary or indefinite.
Example 1.
You are a construction worker. You live and regularly work in Los Angeles. You are a member of a trade union in Los Angeles that helps you get work in the Los Angeles area. Your tax home is Los Angeles. Because of a shortage of work, you took a job on a construction project in Fresno. Your job was scheduled to end in 8 months. The job actually lasted 10 months.
You realistically expected the job in Fresno to last 8 months. The job actually did last less than 1 year. The job is temporary and your tax home is still in Los Angeles.
