No, an RV Isn’t Eligible for the Home Office Deduction

Flyfin, an app to help 1099 workers track deductions for taxes, posted this video on their Instagram page. The only problem is - it’s inaccurate tax information.

The ad features two individuals who live and work in their RV full-time, and claim they’re able to write off 40% of their RV expenses as a home-office deduction. The IRS has two main rules around deducting home office expense - the space must be REGULARLY used as a home office (eg it’s you're primary place of work) and it must be EXCLUSIVELY your home office (you can’t use the space for anything else).

Although they use their RV as their primary office, they don’t use it exclusively since they also live in it. Because the RV is such a small space, there is no way a reasonable argument could be made that 40% is used just for office work. At most, they might be able to deduct some areas of the RV they use for storage of work equipment, but it would be so minuscule it most likely would not even be worth tracking.

If they can’t use it for their home office - could they instead take advantage of auto deductions since they’re using it for work? My hot take is no - they can’t. The auto deduction can only be used when you’re traveling from work location to work location. We’ve already established that the RV is not a work location for them since they can’t take the home office deduction, so as they’re traveling, they literally aren’t leaving their home. Thus any traveling they’re doing for business is not a deduction.

The only way they could possible unlock those deductions, would be only if their RV was not also their primary residence, and they could show documented support as to why they qualify either with the auto deduction or the travel deduction.

This is a cute idea, but it’s cute in the same way that a wild animal is: it’ll hurt when reality bites.

Walt running away from the IRS auditor knocking at the RV door.