# Contemporaneous Records



## LADryver (Jun 6, 2017)

What a word. Leave it to Congress to write it. It came from Congress in 1986. The Tax Reform Act of 1986 was the great tax code revision engineered by the Ronald Reagan era. It was passed in the middle of that year and the changes it brought included ACRS and Section 179, Passive Loss and At Risk Limitations, among many other things. Along with tax I also worked in accounting. I knew the impacts of these things. My tax prep business was to be affected most by the rule for Contemporaneous records. It affected everyone taking mileage and auto deductions. It left people to figure it out on their own. In the age of apps now it is why we have those tracker apps. The problem with them is that we can not prove a mistake when something is unclassified from personal or commute. If an auditor does not believe it is accurate the high tech app will not help you. The high tech app leaves it to you to define work or commute or business or personal or vacation or medical. An auditor can still decide your record is not accurate. But there is a way to take all on app miles accurately. Uber provides you monthly statements that are documents you can download. Uber also provides the individual trip record with map and all amounts. It is done for you.

If you multi-app you have to chronicle the overlapping miles in a handwritten journal. At the end of the tax period you take total app miles and subtract overlapping miles and your auditor will believe you. If you multi app across businesses like rideshare and other company deliveries you need to work harder. The deliveries have not yet given all the app miles which you need and can take. Cruising is for business. You would have to work out a consistent orderly scheme that will be believed.

This rule was created because too many people were estimating too much. All you have to do is show that your deduction is not an estimate.


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