Claim for Mileage While on Temporary Duty Near Headquarters

An authorized certifying officer of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) requested a decision as to the propriety of paying a revenue agent's claim for mileage costs from her residence to her temporary duty station and return on regular workdays. The agent used her privately owned automobile to commute from her residence to her temporary duty station located about 2.5 blocks from her official duty station. She requested an interpretation as to the applicability of the regulation under which her temporary duty station was designated and challenged the limitation placed on her reimbursement which restricted payments to 100 miles during each of the first 5 workdays at a temporary duty station. Regulations define temporary duty station as a location to which an employee is sent temporarily to perform official business. Under the general rule governing the reimbursement of mileage for employees using their privately owned vehicle on Government business, an employee's entitlement to mileage for travel, whether to one or more duty sites in a day, is governed by such regulations as an agency prescribes, giving due consideration to the interests of the Government and the employee. GAO decisions have held that, when an employee is assigned to a nearby temporary duty station, he may be reimbursed his full travel expenses or only the amount which exceeds his normal commuting expense to his permanent duty station. The determination to limit reimbursement for travel to a temporary duty station is within the discretion of the employing agency, and it is not within the jurisdiction of GAO to question the agency to so limit travel reimbursement. Accordingly, the agent's claim for mileage was denied.