# Mileage Deduction



## Williemo22

I'm about to get started driving in Austin. Has anyone claimed the mileage deduction to recoup some of the fuel expenses?


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## Droosk

You can claim the standard IRS mileage deduction of 56 cents a mile. This is designed to cover all expenses related to operating the vehicle for commercial purposes.


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## LAuberX

Log every mile the app is on. 

You are running a business, you will get a 1099 with income reported to the IRS.


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## UberOKC

My CPA deducts my mileage, cell phone, and misc office supplies and items I by for my customer's use.


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## Williemo22

Thanks for the replies y'all. I also found an IRS publication that sets out the mileage deduction. Prior to this "cars for hire" were excluded. 

I can't post it yet, so give me a couple of likes and I'll post it.


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## Arthur

Wow! So you can now legally operate as a Uber Driver in Austin?


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## Williemo22

Yep


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## gman

LAuberX said:


> Log every mile the app is on.
> 
> You are running a business, you will get a 1099 with income reported to the IRS.


Not just miles the app is on. Let's say you start ubering from your home and eventually end up in bum **** Egypt somewhere. You don't want to uber in BFE so you turn the app off and drive home. All those miles are deductible.


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## Williemo22

Gman, that is what is was thinking, that the miles to get to your passenger and back to your house would be deductible.


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## LAuberX

gman said:


> Not just miles the app is on. Let's say you start ubering from your home and eventually end up in bum **** Egypt somewhere. You don't want to uber in BFE so you turn the app off and drive home. All those miles are deductible.


From the time I leave my driveway until I get back home my app is on and I am seeking work. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.


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## Fauxknight

Williemo22 said:


> Gman, that is what is was thinking, that the miles to get to your passenger and back to your house would be deductible.


If you are running the app and willing to accept rides then those miles are deductible. I'm pretty sure non-app miles can be deducted as well as long as it's simply repositioning for the job. Basically you can't normally deduct miles to get to and from work and your house, but since your vehicle is your work you start the mileage count as soon as you get in your vehicle to work.


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## Bmateo

Does anyone have a formula for this? I stopped driving a few weeks ago, but still will need to file. I don't even make 56-cents per mile driven, so the deduction would be greater than the income. Something tells me that would attract IRS attention. Wondering if anyone ever thought of just doing it by formula. Example: Calculate 85 cents on the dollar earned, so if your 1099 says you earned $1000, you say you drove 1518 miles, which makes your deduction $850. My REAL experience has been that for every dollar I earn (after Uber cut), that I have to drive 2-miles on a busy night, sometimes 2.5 on a slower night. 

Again, why I'm not driving for Uber anymore. Not tax reasons, just not worth it. But I have to file taxes still. 

I'll occasionally pick up a ride on Lyft, but it is so seldom that I likely won't meet the threshold to claim.


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## ReviTULize

I use TripLog
https://TripLogMileage.com


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## UberThis

I'm deducting all the car washes, bottles of water, cleaning supplies, extra chargers, two phone mounts, part of my personal mobile phone bill. 

We should also be logging where we're driving as well as miles according to what I read on the IRS website.


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## Tristan Zier

Williemo22 said:


> Thanks for the replies y'all. I also found an IRS publication that sets out the mileage deduction. Prior to this "cars for hire" were excluded.


This is referring to IRS Publication 463, which was released in 2013 (if you want to Google it). In general, it's much more favorable for rideshare drivers like Uber drivers to use the Standard Mileage Rate - much easier to track, and usually results in a bigger expense.


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## Tristan Zier

Bmateo said:


> Does anyone have a formula for this? I stopped driving a few weeks ago, but still will need to file. I don't even make 56-cents per mile driven, so the deduction would be greater than the income. Something tells me that would attract IRS attention. Wondering if anyone ever thought of just doing it by formula. Example: Calculate 85 cents on the dollar earned, so if your 1099 says you earned $1000, you say you drove 1518 miles, which makes your deduction $850. My REAL experience has been that for every dollar I earn (after Uber cut), that I have to drive 2-miles on a busy night, sometimes 2.5 on a slower night.


You should definitely not guesstimate your mileage based on your earnings. This is a huge red flag for the IRS and will definitely get you audited.

Keep in mind that the $0.56/mile isn't technically an "expense" - it's just an estimate of your expense. For example, your actual per mile expenses could be $0.40 (e.g. if you drive a hybrid that has great gas mileage). That means you get to write off a larger expense than you incur and save more on taxes than you should (in a totally legal way).

If your "expenses" are greater than your earnings, then that's fine. The only regulation around here is that if you have multiple years of business losses (typically 3-5 years), the government may try to claim this is a "hobby" instead of a "business". But you're still allowed to have a business loss.


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## Bart McCoy

gman said:


> Not just miles the app is on. Let's say you start ubering from your home and eventually end up in bum **** Egypt somewhere. You don't want to uber in BFE so you turn the app off and drive home. All those miles are deductible.


hmmmmm, @UberTaxes told the Uber world this is NOT true


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## Tristan Zier

Bart McCoy said:


> hmmmmm, @UberTaxes told the Uber world this is NOT true


Generally, unless you're actively searching for customers, you won't be able to write off the mileage. So as long as you're leaving the app on and driving to/from an area where you think you'll be getting more work, you can claim that was business mileage (you may have to take some rides along the way if you get any notifications). Otherwise the IRS may see that as a commute and not allow the deduction.


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## Rainbow Stew

It seems to me that this should be simpler than some people are making it out to be.

If I get into my car in front of my house and go online with the app, I'm working. It's like I'm sitting in an empty store waiting for customers to come in, except if I want to I can move the store around to make it more convenient for the customers to enter.

If I'm online and ready to take PAX, whether they are near or far, then my mileage for that period is deductible. I'm not commuting to a work site--I'm already at the work site.

Now if I live 50 miles away from the area I drive in, maybe there is a gray area about the mileage between my house and the driving area, but only because there is no way I would ever get a ping sitting in front of my house. In my case, however, I routinely get pings while sitting in front of my house after I go online but before I ever put my car in gear.

Conceptually, there should be no distinction between empty and loaded miles if you are online, in your driving area, and available to take rides. If you take a PAX outside your driving area and deadhead back to your driving area and remain online, that should all be deductible because you are simply driving from one job to another while you are online.

The idea that there is a difference between deadhead miles before your first ping of the day and deadhead miles between pings during the day doesn't make any sense to me. Similarly, if you remain online while driving home at night, then that mileage is deductible as well because you are online and available to take rides all the way up until you park your car in front of your house. If a person goes offline 40 miles from home at the end of the night and then drives home, that mileage is probably also deductible, but I don't do that so I don't need to resolve that question for my own situation.

I enter my odomoter reading in a mileage log when I get in my car and go online, and I enter the odometer reading when I go offline later that night when I return. I was working the whole time. The general rule is mileage from home to work site is not deductible, but that presupposes that you don't START working until you reach the work site. With rideshare work, you are working from the moment you go online and are in a position to receive ride requests and prepared to receive them.

If I drive around for an hour looking for my first ping of the night, how could the IRS seriously argue that the expenses related to that driving around were not business expenses if I was within the driving area and I was available to receive pings the whole time? What we are doing when we are online and looking for rides is basically prospecting for new business, which is deductible.

I'm surprised all of this isn't well-settled.


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## Bart McCoy

^^^^^^^^^^^^^ /thread


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## LAuberX

Log all the work miles and write them off at .575 each, or whatever the rate is.

Get in car, app on, write down mileage.

Park car at end of shift, app off, write down mileage.

It's that simple.


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## Bart McCoy

Use a mileage smartphone app to make tracking miles easier


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## JMBF831

Forgive my elementary understanding, but, in a nutshell:

I drove 460 miles so I get to deduct .57 ($262.20) from my "earnings" of $455. Therefore, my taxable income is:

$455 - $262.20 = $192.80 (and of that $192.80 I can expect to pay...18% ?

Is this how it works, basically?


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## JDavis

I know for other types of business car use you can't deduct the miles you drive to your business, only from the business to the place you are working. Same on the way back So maybe start counting after the first person gets in the car and then stop counting after the last person gets out.


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## JMBF831

JDavis said:


> I know for other types of business car use you can't deduct the miles you drive to your business, only from the business to the place you are working. Same on the way back So maybe start counting after the first person gets in the car and then stop counting after the last person gets out.


Wouldn't you just calculate based on when the app is either on or off. When the app is on, you're working and all miles should be considered, no?


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## Fauxknight

JDavis said:


> I know for other types of business car use you can't deduct the miles you drive to your business, only from the business to the place you are working. Same on the way back So maybe start counting after the first person gets in the car and then stop counting after the last person gets out.


Our work is our houses for the most part so all miles count. The exception would be someone who lives outside the market they drive in, then theoretically miles from their house to their market aren't likely expensible (we expense stuff rather than deduct..just to nit pick, deductions are done post taxes paid where as expenses are pre tax calculations, same effect in the long run though).


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## Bart McCoy

Just put an office in one room of your house. Then you can count miles to and from home as an independent contractor


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## JDavis

I guess you can do it how you want. If you do claim more expenses than be prepared for an audit, even if it is less than two years. I know I got one when I lost money selling stuff on ebay.


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## StarzykCPA

JDavis said:


> I guess you can do it how you want. If you do claim more expenses than be prepared for an audit, even if it is less than two years. I know I got one when I lost money selling stuff on ebay.


If you're entitled to a deduction, definitely take it. I'm pretty confident those first miles would hold up in an audit. Just be sure to keep a written log.


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