Originally Posted by
bcpilot
If you claim that you are a salaried employee, even then you can claim the all the expense/bills that were NOT paid for by the employer while on the road. Expenses such as hotel, uniform cleaning, meals, phone, Internet, roaming charges etc can de deducted as un-reimbursed employee business expenses by using Form 2106 on the tax return.
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i2106.pdf
But tread carefully in what you choose to write off, specially if get a per diem...
You are exactly correct. Not sure how anyone else does per diem, but the way I have done it is to deduct the difference between the published rates and what I have actually received. I use the M&IE rates published by the US State Department for OCONUS locations.