flight attendant TAFB-Non Taxable income

[tdfltatt]

My daughter is a Delta flight attendant.  Her final 2019 paystub shows entries for TAFB-Non Taxable that appear to be included in her total YTD taxable Fed income.  The total of the TAFB-Non Taxable also shows on her W-2, box 12c, L—Substantiated employee business expense reimbursements

(nontaxable).  I believe these are effectively for work related meal expenses (time away from base) not exceeding M&IE rates.  Since they don’t appear to be pre-tax, are these deductible somewhere (other than using itemized sch A), or excluded with TurboTax premium someway?

[tgfirst]

Ignore original post.  The TAFB Non-Taxable is not included in Fed Taxable income.  From the lengthy paystub info I've deduced that the Fed Taxable YTD is the Gross less the TAFB (non-taxable), less 401K, less dental, plus Non Revenue Travel, and plus Basic Life Imputed Income.

I always like to confirm paystubs to W-2's, and flight attendant paystub entries are very lengthy, and lack good description (denoting pre-tax items would help).

[Paul Espinoza]

Like you, my daughter also is a flight attendant for Delta.  I cannot seem to find anywhere in the tax code where it addresses  Time Away From Base as taxable or non-taxable.  In addition to this, there are two other pay codes listed in Box 14 with the abbreviations off OTH FRINGE AND WA PFML.   

tgfirst, can you advise if any of these are taxable or non-taxable?  If so, where can I find a provision or section of the code that slam-dunks this?

Much thanks! 

[DaveF1006]

According to this Turbo Tax link, code L reports payments to you under an accountable plan reimbursement policy.  Since these are paid under an accountable plan, they are already excluded from Box 1 of your W-2 and therefore, they are also already excluded from tax. Once you have entered the Box 12, Code L amounts in TurboTax, you do not need to do anything else with this information for your return.

To test this out, I entered data in my turbo tax test return and discovered it did not increase my taxable income. You can verify this in the following IRS link. it states on page 4, "Under an accountable plan, allowances or reimbursements paid to employees for job-related expenses are excluded from wages and are not subject to withholding."