You can write off per diem, mileage and hotel in one of two ways. First way, you produce documentation of actually expenses.
Lets start with a car or motor home. You can either take the standard tax write off for mileage (something around 40 cents a mile) or you can keep records of the actual expenses. IE: Each fill up with gas as you drive from your home to the locums facility and back home again. The first is actually a loser as the price of gas has gone up faster than the mileage rate the government allows. PLUS it does not include wear and tear on the car. Now if you really want to get into it, if you bought a new car or motorhome and used it ONLY for locums work, you could write off interest payments, upkeep, RV park fees, electricity, propane, water, phone, and whatever other expense you incur using the motor home for locums work. You also get to depreciate it as a business expense. If you are going to do a lot of locums work and cover a lot of ground, doing it using actually expenses saves you a lot more on taxes. And you will never have to worry about getting somewhere and finding out all the good hotels are full due to an "event" and you have to stay in a dump. Worse comes to worse, you can park the motor home in the parking lot of the hospital for a couple of nights until the event is over.
Per diem. Same thing. You take the allowed amount or produce proof as to actual expenses.
Hotel: If the hospital pays it, you do not get any money and it does not show up on the tax form so you do not have to worry about it. However, if they give you a set amount of money ($50 per day for example) and you have to pay the hotel, then you can go either way on that. If the hotel costs you $100 you come out behind. If the hotel is only $40, you come out ahead. But either way, you have to declare any money not spent on housing or write off the extra it cost you.
When you are NOT working locums, you do not get any money, so whatever you do in regards to housing is up to you. I only mention the motor home as that gives you the greatest amount of tax write off and you can easily justify the vehicle. I know one CRNA who did locums all the time and he had a $500,000 motor home which he used as a write off. After 7 years he owned it free and clear. He was able to write off every expense related to it as he lived in it year around and was doing locums year around. He never HAD a home other than that.
