3-month period for meal expenses at the same place of work even with temporally and contractually separate employment relationships?
I worked as a doctor in temporary employment in a single clinic in the year 2016. I was absent from my place of residence for 3 to 4 consecutive days each week and stayed at the workplace during this time.
There were, however, several separate employment relationships with the same employer (the same temporary work agency), from which I was always "loaned out" to the same clinic during each assignment. Each employment relationship was established through its own employment contract and therefore contractually separate from the others. During the periods between the employment relationships, which were each significantly less than 4 weeks, I was registered as unemployed with the employment agency and received unemployment benefits.
If there had been only one employment relationship, the meal expenses (the lump sums of €12 for arrival and departure days or €24 for 24-hour absence from the place of residence) would only be tax deductible as work-related expenses for a period of 3 months when working at the same workplace.
My question:
Does the fact that these were temporally and contractually separate employment relationships with the same employer bypass the 3-month time limit, allowing me to deduct meal expenses in my tax return for up to 3 months from the start of each new employment relationship, even though it was always the same external workplace and the interruption between employment relationships was less than 4 weeks? Are there any statements from the Ministry of Finance or court rulings that I can refer to in case of rejection by the tax office?
