Court Opinion

ID: 9467439
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:48:55.496459+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:40:20.933983
License: Public Domain

KEETON, District Judge,
concurring in the result.
Although I agree with the result reached in the court’s opinion, and with much of its underlying analysis, I write separately because I cannot join in the court’s determination that New York was the taxpayer’s home for purposes of 26 U.S.C. § 162(a)(2). In so holding, the court adopts a definition of “home” that differs from the ordinary meaning of the term and therefore unduly risks causing confusion and misinterpretation of the important principle articulated in this case.
In adopting section 162(a)(2), Congress sought “to mitigate the burden of the taxpayer who, because of the exigencies of his trade or business, must maintain two places of abode and thereby incur additional and duplicate living expenses.” Kroll v. Commissioner, 49 T.C. 557, 562 (1962). See Rosenspan v. United States, 438 F.2d 905, 912 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 404 U.S. 864, 92 S.Ct. 54, 30 L.Ed.2d 108 (1971); James v. United States, 308 F.2d 204, 206-07 (9th Cir. 1962). In the present case, the taxpayer does not contend that she maintained her residence in Boston for business reasons. Before working in New York, she had attended school near her home in Boston, and she continued to do so after she finished her summer job. In addition, her husband lived and worked in Boston. Thus, on the facts in this case, I am in agreement with the court that the taxpayer’s deductions must be disallowed because she was not required by her trade or business to maintain both places of residence. However rather than resting its conclusion on an interpretation of the language of section 162(a)(2) taken as a whole, which allows a deduction for ordinary and necessary expenses incurred “while away from home in the pursuit of trade or business,” the court reaches the same result by incorporating the concept of business-related residence into the definition of “home,” thereby producing sometimes, but not always, a meaning of “home” quite different from ordinary usage.
The Supreme Court has noted that “[t)he meaning of the word ‘home’ in [the predecessor of § 162(a)(2)] with reference to a taxpayer residing in one city and working in another has engendered much difficulty and litigation.” Commissioner v. Flowers, 326 U.S. 465, 471, 66 S.Ct. 250,253,90 L.Ed. 203 (1946). The Court has twice rejected opportunities to adopt definitive constructions of the term. Flowers, supra, 326 U.S. at 472, 66 S.Ct. at 253. Commissioner v. Stidger, 386 U.S. 287, 292, 87 S.Ct. 1065, 1068, 17 L.Ed.2d 51 (1967). See also Peurifoy v. Commissioner, 358 U.S. 59, 79 S.Ct. 104, 3 L.Ed.2d 30 (1958). Moreover, as the court’s opinion in the present case points out, the courts of appeals have split on whether a taxpayer’s “home” is her (or his) principal residence or principal place of business. See cases cited at p. 253, ante.
The court enters this conflict among circuits with a “functional” definition of home not yet adopted by any other circuit. I read the opinion as indicating that in a dual residence case, the Commissioner must determine whether the exigencies of the taxpayer’s trade or business require her to maintain both residences. See pp. 253-255 ante. If so, the Commissioner must decide that the taxpayer’s principal resi*257dence is her “home” and must conclude that expenses associated with the secondary residence were incurred “while away from home,” and are deductible. If not, as in the instant case, the Commissioner must find that the taxpayer’s principa] place of business is her “home” and must conclude that the expenses in question were not incurred “while away from home.” The conclusory nature of these determinations as to which residence is her “home” reveals the potentially confusing effect of adopting an extraordinary definition of “home.”
A word used in a statute can mean, among the cognoscenti, whatever authoritative sources define it to mean. Nevertheless, it is a distinct disadvantage of a body of law that it can be understood only by those who are expert in its terminology. Moreover, needless risks of misunderstanding and confusion arise, not only among members of the public but also among professionals who must interpret and apply a statute in their day-to-day work, when a word is given an extraordinary meaning that is contrary to its everyday usage.
The result reached by the court can easily be expressed while also giving “home” its ordinary meaning, and neither Congress nor the Supreme Court has directed that “home” be given an extraordinary meaning in the present context. See Flowers, supra, Stidger, supra, and Peurifoy, supra. In Rosenspan v. United States, supra, Judge Friendly, writing for the court, rejected the Commissioner’s proposed definition of home as the taxpayer’s business headquarters, concluding that in section 162(a)(2) “ ‘home’ means ‘home.’ ” Id. at 912. Id. at 911. Cf. United States v. New England Coal and Coke Co., 318 F.2d 138, 142 (1st Cir. 1963) (“Unless the contrary appears, it is presumed that statutory words were used in their ordinary sense”).
When Congress uses a non-technical word in a tax statute, presumably it wants administrators and courts to read it in the way that ordinary people would understand, and not “to draw on some unexpressed spirit outside the bounds of the normal meaning of words.” Addison v. Holly Hill Fruit Prods., Inc., 322 U.S. 607, 617, 64 S.Ct. 1215, 1221, 88 L.Ed. 1488 (1944).
In analyzing dual residence cases, the court’s opinion advances compelling reasons that the first step must be to determine whether the taxpayer has business as opposed to purely personal reasons for maintaining both residences. This must be done in order to determine whether the expenses of maintaining a second residence were, “necessitated by business, as opposed to personal, demands,” p. 250 ante, and were in this sense incurred by the taxpayer “while away from home in pursuit of trade or business.” Necessarily implicit in this proposition is a more limited corollary that is sufficient to decide the present case: When the taxpayer has a business relationship to only one location, no traveling expenses the taxpayer incurs are “necessitated by business, as opposed to personal demands,” regardless of how many residences the taxpayer has, where they are located, or which one is “home.”
In the present case, although the taxpayer argues that her employment required her to reside in New York, that contention is insufficient to compel a determination that it was the nature of her trade or business that required her to incur the additional expense of maintaining a second residence, the burden that section 162(a)(2) was intended to mitigate. Her expenses associated with maintaining her New York residence arose from personal interests that led her to maintain two residences rather than a single residence close to her work.1 While traveling from her principal residence to a second place of residence closer to her business, even though “away from home,” she was not “away from home in pursuit of business.” Thus, the expenses at issue in this case were not incurred by the taxpayer “while away from home in pursuit of trade or business.”
*258In the contrasting case in which a taxpayer has established that both residences were maintained for business reasons, section 162(a)(2) allows the deduction of expenses associated with travel to, and maintenance of, one of the residences if they are incurred for business reasons and that abode is not the taxpayer’s home. A common sense meaning of “home” works well to achieve the purpose of this provision.
In summary, the court announces a sound principle that, in dual residence cases, deductibility of traveling expenses depends upon a showing that both residences were maintained for business reasons. If that principle is understood to be derived from the language of section 162(a)(2) taken as a whole, “home” retains operative significance for determining which of the business-related residences is the one the expense of which can be treated as deductible. In this context, “home” should be given its ordinary meaning to allow a deduction only for expenses relating to an abode that is not the taxpayer’s principal place of residence. On the undisputed facts in this case, the Tax Court found that Boston was the taxpayer’s “home” in the everyday sense, i. e., her principal place of residence. Were the issue relevant to disposition of the case, I would uphold the Tax Court’s quite reasonable determination on the evidence before it. However, because the taxpayer had no business reason for maintaining both residences, her deduction for expenses associated with maintaining a second residence closer than her principal residence to her place of employment must be disallowed without regard to which of her two residences was her “home” under section 162(a)(2).

. For reasons explained by the court, pp. 254-256, ante, the temporary nature of her employment does not bring the case within those as to which Congress was mitigating the burden of duplicative expenses when enacting section 162(a)(2).