IRS to Discontinue High-Low Per Diem Method for Travel Expenses

The Internal Revenue Service intends to stop authorizing the high-low per diem method for substantiating lodging, meal and incidental expenses that can be incurred when traveling away from home.

In a revenue procedure that it issued last year, the IRS had requested public comment on the continuing need for using the high-low method to substantiate lodging, meal, and incidental expenses incurred when traveling away from home, but received no comments on the proposal. In Announcement 2011-42, the IRS said Tuesday that it now plans to publish a revenue procedure this year outlining the general rules and procedures for substantiating expenses, while omitting the high-low substantiation method.

While the IRS plans to discontinue publishing the per diem revenue procedure annually, it said it would publish a revenue procedure in subsequent years only when modifying the substantiation rules and procedures. It will also publish the special transportation rate in an annual notice.