Temporary Assignment Tax Deductions

One of the hidden gems of my temporary assignment is I may be able to deduct many of my expenses from the temporary assignment on my income taxes. While this is a sizable opportunity to reduce my income taxes, there is little chance for me to come out ahead since these are tax deductions and not tax credits. My hope is to identify all the areas of opportunity so that I can maximize the value of these deductions to reduce the net costs of the temporary assignment.

So far here are some of the expenses it looks like I will be able to deduct:
1.) Housing expenses including rent, furniture rental, and utilities for my housing in NY.
2.) 50% of dining/food expenses. I can basically take these deductions like any worker can for unreimbursed business trips. Most likely I will just use the established per diem rates rather that tracking all my food/dining expenses.
3.) Car mileage while in NY, tolls, parking, and other transportation expenses. I could rent a car and deduct all the expenses, but I took my car to NY with me. I can take the standard mileage rate of $0.445/mile for all the miles I put on my car while away and also deduct any additional transportation expenses I occur while away.
4.) Trip expenses to go back and forth to NC. This is of great benefit because I can deduct my airfare for each roundtrip trip back to NC.

Each of these items should add up to a sizable deduction for me. I will follow up with greater details and my plans to maximize the potential value of each of these areas for tax deductions. In the end this should help me dilute the impact of the unreimbursed expenses while on the assignment.