Rest refers to rules set by the
IRS that describe a sufficient amount of
downtime for a
transportation employee subject to
DOT
rules. This includes aviation industry employees such as a
flight crew that is deducting travel expenses.
The rest requirement, along with the requirement that the
flight crew must be away from their tax home,
allows professional flight crews to deduct
traveling expenses. Merely napping while at an outstation does NOT satisfy
the rest requirement described in IRS Publication
463. This is why a flight crew cannot
write off travel expenses for
day-trips. A
pilot or flight attendant's relief from duty
should be long enough to get necessary sleep or rest.
The following is a paraphrased example from
IRS Publication
463:
A railroad conductor leaves his
tax home on a round-trip run between two
cities. The conductor returns back to his
tax home sixteen (16) hours later. During the trip, the conductor has six
(6) hours off at the turn-around city where he eats meal and rents a hotel room
to get sleep before starting the return trip.
In this example, the 6 hours rest that the
conductor received is enough to constitute a necessary rest period to justify
deducting travel expenses, including
meals and
incidental
expenses (M&IE) while
away from his tax home.
Note that this does not necessarily have to correspond to the rest rules that
the FAA regulations describe for airline pilots.
The definition of what constitutes a rest period
can be a little gray, but generally for pilots
and flight attendants to deduct travel expenses (including the
per diem deduction),
they need to be on a layover. If a day trip has enough of a break in the
middle that it constitutes a hotel or some other rest location, then the
pilot or flight attendant is probably
eligible to write off travel expenses because
they had enough of a rest period to meet the IRS
definition of rest.