Commentary : Food for Thought and Thoughts about Food: Can Meals and Lodging Provided to Domestic Servants Be for the Convenience of the Employer?

This commentary considers one of the least important issues in tax law: whether the value of meals and lodging provided to domestic servants is excludable from the servants' gross income under section 119 of the Internal Revenue Code. Trivial though the issue is, the author goes on and on-and on, arguing that an example in the regulations under section 119, which concludes that the "business premises of the employer" requirement would be satisfied in such a situation, is misleading in its implications. It's not enough that the meals and lodging be provided on the business premises of the employer to meet statutory requirements, and how, pray tell, would the "convenience of the employer" requirement be met in such a case? (Hint: it wouldn't.)