Sorry for the long question in advance. In 2012 I worked out of town for my company, and none of my expenses while out of town were reimburse, so when I did my taxes this year I place those expenses in as deductions.

Now my problem is that, while out of town staying in a hotel, I mistakenly left my shopping bag of compiled receipts on the nightstand table instead of under the bed as I normally do when I'd leave my room, and upon my return to the room I discovered that my bag of receipts was missing. I confronted the cleaning lady about the issue, and she confessed to having thrown the bag away, thinking it was simply a bag of trash.

I went to go check the dumpster for the bag, but the trash truck had already come and emptied it. Well lucky for me, I make it a point to make ALL of my purchases with my debit card while out of town. So when tax time came around, I used my bank statements showing my expenses for the period in time in which I was working out of town to add up my deductible expenses.

Well, the IRS and Pennsylvania accepted my return and sent out my refunds with no problem, while my own state of Delaware put their's on hold, demanding that I show them proof of that I don't get reimbursed for my work expenses, as well as proof of my expenses shown on my tax return. I claimed gas, food/hygiene and hotel expenses on my taxes.

The information on my bank statements clearly shows the name of the location I made a purchase, the date, town, state, as well as the transaction number given to each purchase in which one could use to obtain an itemized log of what was purchased in each transaction shown (receipt). I highlighted all of my purchases I made at clearly labeled grocery stores, gas stations and hotels; all of which are well known, regional, national and international chains (Shell, HESS, Giant Foods, Super 8, Walmart and Rutters convenient store, which is like 7/11 in Western and Central PA).

So would my bank statements along with a copy of my work log showing the dates and locations I worked on my various projects over the years, be enough for the auditor to verify my out of town expenses I placed on my return?