Hi Nick. As long as you are not being reimbursed for your meals by the Locums company, I would say that you can write off 50% of the total meals as calculated for each metropolitan area based on the number of days of the assignment. You can get a full list of the per diem rates at www.gsa.gov.

Please note that you can deduct the meals as long as you continue to maintain a "tax home" that you return to between assignments. If you just move from contract to contract, you become a transient worker and the meals no longer are deductible.

Here is the IRS example of a transient employee. You can only deduct meals if your tax home is difference from where you are working:

Example 2.

You are an outside salesperson with a sales territory covering several states. Your employer's main office is in Newark, but you do not conduct any business there. Your work assignments are temporary, and you have no way of knowing where your future assignments will be located. You have a room in your married sister's house in Dayton. You stay there for one or two weekends a year, but you do no work in the area. You do not pay your sister for the use of the room.

You do not satisfy any of the three factors listed earlier (in the IRS Publication 463). You are an itinerant and have no tax home.

Zip Code: 01801