# I own both cars in my name. We both rideshare. what can each of us claim?



## Wallyma (Jan 9, 2016)

Dreading the quarterly tax. This is our first year. My partner drove the other car full time for uber since last summer.
How what can he claim?
I started last week of December full time. What should I claim? I feel like we will lose getting tax breaks on one of the cars. Can/should I make him owner of the vehicle he drives?
Both prius have loans.

Thanks for any advice,

wally


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## UberTaxPro (Oct 3, 2014)

Wallyma said:


> Dreading the quarterly tax. This is our first year. My partner drove the other car full time for uber since last summer.
> How what can he claim?
> I started last week of December full time. What should I claim? I feel like we will lose getting tax breaks on one of the cars. Can/should I make him owner of the vehicle he drives?
> Both prius have loans.
> ...


Are you and your partner married? If yes do you file jointly?


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## Wallyma (Jan 9, 2016)

UberTaxPro said:


> Are you and your partner married? If yes do you file jointly?


no. neither.


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## LAuberX (Jun 3, 2014)

quarterly tax? what is that?

I drove Uber for two years, never owed any taxes for 2014/2015 after I did my returns.
Keep a daily mileage log for each car, log every mile you have the app on, it will wipe out any taxes.


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## UberTaxPro (Oct 3, 2014)

Wallyma said:


> no. neither.


If you own both cars your partner will not be able to deduct expenses for either.


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## UberTaxPro (Oct 3, 2014)

You could possibly rent one vehicle to your partner. The rent would be deductible to him/her but would be income to you. Your insurance and loan companies might have issues with that arrangement however.


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## UberTaxPro (Oct 3, 2014)

LAuberX said:


> quarterly tax? what is that?
> 
> I drove Uber for two years, never owed any taxes for 2014/2015 after I did my returns.
> Keep a daily mileage log for each car, log every mile you have the app on, it will wipe out any taxes.


True for most but everyone's situation is different.


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## UberTaxPro (Oct 3, 2014)

Wallyma said:


> no. neither.


How do you split the income on the car your partner drives now?


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## Older Chauffeur (Oct 16, 2014)

UberTaxPro said:


> True for most but everyone's situation is different.


Hi,
I pm'd you and UberPissed with a non-Uber tax question when you have the time.
Thanks.


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## Papa Sarducci (Jun 20, 2016)

Let's do a little math and see how this adds up.

We will use 20 hours a week since that is about what I do.

20 hours of driving will yield about 12 hours of actual paid work, the rest will be driving around or sitting waiting for rides.

Let's say you drive around the whole time and average 30 MPH. 20 hours will put 600 miles on your car per week. If you do that for a year you will put 31,200 miles on your car just doing Uber part time.

We will assume that you will make the advertised $19/hr although that is an exception, not the rule.

20 hours at $19/hr yields $380/week or $19,760/year.

Using the standard mileage deduction of $0.54/mile we can take the miles driven from above 31,200 and calculate the deduction which comes to $16,848. Subtract that from the $19,760 and you owe taxes on $2192.

Run that number through the self-employed tax calculator and we get $333 http://www.calcxml.com/calculators/self-employment-tax-calculator?skn=#results

You would need to drive 3 times that to reach the taxes owed of $1000 to require quarterly returns.

Based on $0.54/mile you would only need to drive 36,593 miles to cover your taxes and that is without deducting anything for maintenance.

I think you can see that it takes a whole lot of driving to end up owing taxes, I'm not sure you could ever make enough driving for Uber to overcome the standard mileage deduction combined with other deductions. Also $19/hr sustained driving for Uber is a pipe dream at best, YMMV but expect closer to $12.00.

Just for giggles let's run the same numbers using that figure.

20 hours at $12/hr gets you $240/week x 52 weeks or $12,480

Subtract the SMD of $16,848 and you get -$4368 or a loss. At this rate you can drive 7 more hours per week and not owe taxes, granted that will add 210 miles per week which will up the deduction by $5896 thus enabling you to drive even more hours. You see, you can never catch up to the mileage deduction at that hourly rate.

Also worth noting these calculations assume 100% utilization meaning you are driving pax around the entire 20 hours which is nearly impossible, you would have to get continuous stacked pings with the pickup and dropoff at close to the same location. By my calculations even at 85% utilization (17 hours actually driving pax) you would make almost as much as the SMD thus owing nothing in taxes.


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## Dayvee (Apr 4, 2017)

Ok...so let me wade in here...I am Wally's partner. The cars are both in his name, but were bought with money from a joint bank account, and the insurance policy for both cars have both of our names on them, and the income from (and expenses for) both of our driving goes into that joint bank account. It's a pain in NC to change a car's title to be jointly owned, but basically in all but name, we both own both cars.

WRT the rent thing, I'm going to assume that that could not be applied retroactively, am I right?


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## Mars Troll Number 4 (Oct 30, 2015)

Well if you file taxes jointly your uber business can hemmorage money in an obscne amount while your partner's has no expenses, then when you combine them together on your joint filing collectively you as a couple should mathamtic everything to the proper levels...

For instance..

Your partner makes $5000 ubering
You make $5000 ubering
You each drive 9,259 miles

Your business...

$5,000 revenue
-$10,000 in expenses
-$5000 in loss

Your partner's business
$5,000 revenue
0 expenses
$5,000 in profit

Then your joint income is... zero... because it's impossible to make money on paper driving for uber...


If you don't file jointly... this is going to be a painful tax filing.

You could file actual expenses on the owner of the car (without writing off gas) then the non owner can write off all the gas expenses... same with tolls.

Beyond that you're limited about how much you can shift.


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## Older Chauffeur (Oct 16, 2014)

Moot point since he said they are not married, which is the basic requirement in order to file jointly....


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## UberTaxPro (Oct 3, 2014)

Dayvee said:


> Ok...so let me wade in here...I am Wally's partner. The cars are both in his name, but were bought with money from a joint bank account, and the insurance policy for both cars have both of our names on them, and the income from (and expenses for) both of our driving goes into that joint bank account. It's a pain in NC to change a car's title to be jointly owned, but basically in all but name, we both own both cars.
> 
> WRT the rent thing, I'm going to assume that that could not be applied retroactively, am I right?


You could have formed a business entity like a corporation, partnership or LLC and filed as a partnership.


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## DonCie (Mar 21, 2015)

Papa Sarducci said:


> Let's do a little math and see how this adds up.
> 
> We will use 20 hours a week since that is about what I do.
> 
> ...


I believe some of this information is wrong or misleading
You must have an active registered business to claim business expenses.
So you can't file a schedule C if you didn't register your business.
That's number one.
Number two...Even if you do have a business, you certainly cannot claim the federal milage rate AND maintenance. You can only claim maintenance if you itemized all your expenses, ie...Ga, oil, brakes tires, etc. The s federal .54 per mile calculation is in lieu of itemizing all your expenses. I always take the milage deduction. It usually works to my advantage AND so much easier. ALL mileage in the pursuit of making money for your business is deductable. That means traveling to a from any position whether with or without a rider. Before and after you drop them off even going home after you Uber time is done but not if you go onto you regular corporate job.
Just a note. If you use one care primarily for Uber, you can just keep track of the personal miles and just deduct them from the yearly total...Much easier and legal.



Mears Troll Number 4 said:


> Well if you file taxes jointly your uber business can hemmorage money in an obscne amount while your partner's has no expenses, then when you combine them together on your joint filing collectively you as a couple should mathamtic everything to the proper levels...
> 
> For instance..
> 
> ...


I think you're wrong again but barking up the right tree. You both can be Co owners of the same business such as a LLC, which you need to claim business expenses anyway, then each car used will have the ability to be used and to subtract the federal miles allowance at .54/mile against you Uber income.


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## Older Chauffeur (Oct 16, 2014)

DonCie said:


> Just a note. If you use one care primarily for Uber, you can just keep track of the personal miles and just deduct them from the yearly total...Much easier and legal.


I respectfully disagree. The IRS requires a contemporaneous mileage log showing the date, odometer readings and business purpose to substantiate the claimed deduction. In event of an audit I don't believe they would accept one saying, "These are personal miles, all the rest are for business."

Disclosure: I'm not a tax professional. (But I've been doing this a while.")


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## DonCie (Mar 21, 2015)

Well I got this suggestion from an attorney. It's really just simple math and the results are the same. I doubt the IRS is going to fault you for inventing a different type of record keeping.


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## UberTaxPro (Oct 3, 2014)

DonCie said:


> Well I got this suggestion from an attorney. It's really just simple math and the results are the same. I doubt the IRS is going to fault you for inventing a different type of record keeping.


You seriously need to find a new tax advisor ASAP!!! Or are you joking?


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