Can I deduct meal expenses?

On a day to day basis, you cannot generally deduct your meal expenses. However, where you are away from home on a business trip that lasts longer than one business day and requires time off for sleep, you can deduct certain meal expenses from that trip. You can either deduct the actual expense of your meals or you can use the IRS meal allowance, a rate dictated in tables provided by the General Services Administration, which is currently approximately $31 per day. For more information on business meal expenses, you should see IRS Publication 463.

These deductions are included in the miscellaneous deductions and are therefore subject to the 2% floor (collectively with all other miscellaneous deductions). In addition, you can generally only deduct 50% of any meal costs.