Crew base and tax home are not the same

An assigned crew base or domicile is a scheduling fact your employer records. Publication 463 locates a tax home by the nature of the work and the places of business, and no authority we retrieved says an assignment to a base settles that question by itself.

Nothing here works out an amount for one person. It shows the test the authority sets out so you can see which facts the rules actually care about.

What the rules say

Where your tax home is

A tax home is generally the regular place of business or post of duty, regardless of where a family home is maintained, and it includes the entire city or general area in which the work is located. Where there is more than one place of work, the main place is identified by the total time ordinarily spent in each place, the level of business activity in each place, and whether the income from each place is significant.

Where there is no regular or main place of business or post of duty because of the nature of the work, the tax home may be the place where the person regularly lives. Where there is neither, Publication 463 describes an itinerant, whose tax home is wherever the work is, and who is never treated as travelling away from home.

An assigned crew base or domicile is a scheduling fact recorded by an employer. No retrieved authority states that an assignment to a base establishes a tax home, and no retrieved authority states that a residence establishes one either. Both remain facts to be weighed against the factors the authority actually names.

Work through the test yourself

Walk the factors the authority names

These are the questions Publication 463 actually asks. Answering one only marks it as considered: every outcome below stays visible, because the honest product here is the test, not a verdict about a person.

  1. Is there a regular or main place of business or post of duty, judged by the time ordinarily spent there, the level of activity there, and whether the income from it is significant?
  2. If there is no regular or main place of business because of the nature of the work, is there a place where you regularly live?
  3. Do the facts point in different directions, so that no single place stands out as either the main place of work or the place you regularly live?

  • A tax home is established

    Where a regular or main place of business or post of duty is established, that is where Publication 463 locates the tax home, whatever city a family home is in. Where there is no such place because of the nature of the work, Publication 463 locates it at the place the person regularly lives. The away-from-home rules become readable only from here.

  • Publication 463 describes an itinerant

    With no regular or main place of business or post of duty and no place the person regularly lives, Publication 463 describes an itinerant, whose tax home is wherever the work is and who is never treated as travelling away from home.

  • The facts conflict, so no conclusion follows

    Where the facts conflict, no location is identified as a regular place of business or of abode, and the away-from-home rules stay unreachable. This is a real outcome, not a failure to answer.

  • Nothing has been established yet

    This is where every reader starts. A fact the authority makes relevant has not been established, so no determination is reached, and a base assignment does not stand in for one.

A crew base is not a tax home

An assigned crew base or domicile is a scheduling fact your employer records. Publication 463 locates a tax home by the nature of the work and the places of business, and no authority we retrieved says an assignment to a base settles that question by itself.

Getting yourself from where you live to the base you are assigned to is your own trip to work. The regulation under section 262 treats commuting costs as personal expenses, and Publication 463 says the distance from home to the regular place of work does not change that.

Flying on a non-revenue seat describes the ticket, not the purpose of the trip. Crew ride non-revenue to get to base, to reposition on duty, and on personal trips, so the seat alone tells the rules nothing.

Where this comes from

Every statement above comes from one of these. Each link goes to the official text, with the body that issued it and the date we read it.

What seat do you work in?

What are you trying to figure out?