Tax Court Denies Prof’s Claimed Home Office Deduction; Says Book Writing Not Separate Trade or Business

Thanks to the TaxProf Blog, we have this item, potentially of interest to many law profs:

The Tax Court yesterday decided a case of great interest to law faculty.  Xiong v. Commissioner, T.C. Summ. Op. 2007-96 (6/14/07).  Jin Xiong,an assistant professor of biology at Texas A&M, signed a contractwith Cambridge University Press in 2003 to write a book onbioinformatics — the analysis of information relating to biologicalstructures with the aid of computers.  The book was published in 2006, and Prof. Xiong uses the book in his courses at Texas A&M.

Prof. Xiong claimed that book-writing was a trade or businessseparate from his trade or business as a professor and deducted theexpenses of a home office.  He claimed, without any corroboratingevidence, that he was not permitted to work on the book at his TexasA&M office.  In addition, Prof. Xiong deducted expenses of travelto libraries to do research for the book as well as expenses of drivingfrom his home office to his Texas A&M office (including the cost ofhis daily lunches at Texas A&M). The Tax Court denied the claimeddeductions.

For an excerpt from the opinion, go to the Tax Prof Blog posting.