# Mileage commuting to work and toll to get to work



## Aris (Sep 24, 2014)

I drive to San Francisco to Uber. It is about 40 miles and also pay a Bridge toll. Can I deduct both of them. 
I did not document the milelage I used up but I usually average 175 miles a day. Also I can go find out how many days I ubered and times that by 175 miles. Of course I would not add on trip miles if I did that. Will this be okay? I am planning to go to H&R.


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## UberTaxPro (Oct 3, 2014)

Aris said:


> I drive to San Francisco to Uber. It is about 40 miles and also pay a Bridge toll. Can I deduct both of them.
> I did not document the milelage I used up but I usually average 175 miles a day. Also I can go find out how many days I ubered and times that by 175 miles. Of course I would not add on trip miles if I did that. Will this be okay? I am planning to go to H&R.


Commuting miles are never deductible. Your're required by the IRS to have a contemporaneous mileage log if your're deducting mileage or car expenses. H&R Block? Maybe not your best choice.


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## Aris (Sep 24, 2014)

UberTaxPro said:


> Commuting miles are never deductible. Your're required by the IRS to have a contemporaneous mileage log if your're deducting mileage or car expenses. H&R Block? Maybe not your best choice.


Well it says right here that you can deduct from the last trip until you get home. Hat is commuting miles.


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## UberTaxPro (Oct 3, 2014)

Aris said:


> Well it says right here that you can deduct from the last trip until you get home. Hat is commuting miles.


Why don't you just accept trips on the way to San Francisco? Establishing a home office would also make your "commute" 100% deductible.


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## El Gato (Mar 5, 2016)

So odd about that last one...theoretically when you go offline and go home you are commuting and so it should not be deductible. Had a tax guy from H&R Block give a tax presentation at our Green Light hub last month and he said the same.

However, I do also know that driving to and from a place of business that is not your regular place of business is deductible. Clearly, after dropping off your last pax you are conducting business away from what is your regular place of business (which is everywhere in this field) so I would think it is deductible?

I mean, the rule was not really written with rideshare in mind so it does require some interpretation.

This is what IRS Publication 463 says about it, maybe someone can interpret this better than I for how it applies to rideshare, although the final paragraph I think clearly describes ridehsare for those of us that do not claim our home as our office:
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Transportation expenses include the ordinary and necessary costs of all of the following.

Getting from one workplace to another in the course of your business or profession when you are traveling within the city or general area that is your tax home. Tax home is defined in chapter 1.
Visiting clients or customers.
Going to a business meeting away from your regular workplace.
Getting from your home to a temporary workplace when you have one or more regular places of work. These temporary workplaces can be either within the area of your tax home or outside that area.

Transportation expenses don't include expenses you have while traveling away from home overnight. Those expenses are travel expenses discussed in chapter 1. However, if you use your car while traveling away from home overnight, use the rules in this chapter to figure your car expense deduction. See Car Expenses, later.

Daily transportation expenses you incur while traveling from home to one or more regular places of business are generally nondeductible commuting expenses. However, there may be exceptions to this general rule. You can deduct daily transportation expenses incurred going between your residence and a temporary work station outside the metropolitan area where you live. Also, daily transportation expenses can be deducted if: (1) you have one or more regular work locations away from your residence or (2) your residence is your principal place of business and you incur expenses going between the residence and another work location in the same trade or business, regardless of whether the work is temporary or permanent and regardless of the distance.

*Illustration of transportation expenses.* Figure B, earlier, illustrates the rules that apply for deducting transportation expenses when you have a regular or main job away from your home. You may want to refer to it when deciding whether you can deduct your transportation expenses.
*
Temporary work location*. If you have one or more regular work locations away from your home and you commute to a temporary work location in the same trade or business, you can deduct the expenses of the daily round-trip transportation between your home and the temporary location, regardless of distance.
If your employment at a work location is realistically expected to last (and does in fact last) for 1 year or less, the employment is temporary unless there are facts and circumstances that would indicate otherwise.
If your employment at a work location is realistically expected to last for more than 1 year or if there is no realistic expectation that the employment will last for 1 year or less, the employment isn't temporary, regardless of whether it actually lasts for more than 1 year.
If employment at a work location initially is realistically expected to last for 1 year or less, but at some later date the employment is realistically expected to last more than 1 year, that employment will be treated as temporary (unless there are facts and circumstances that would indicate otherwise) until your expectation changes. It won't be treated as temporary after the date you determine it will last more than 1 year.
If the temporary work location is beyond the general area of your regular place of work and you stay overnight, you are traveling away from home. You may have deductible travel expenses as discussed in chapter 1.

*No regular place of work.* If you have no regular place of work but ordinarily work in the metropolitan area where you live, you can deduct daily transportation costs between home and a temporary work site outside that metropolitan area. Generally, a metropolitan area includes the area within the city limits and the suburbs that are considered part of that metropolitan area.
You can't deduct daily transportation costs between your home and temporary work sites within your metropolitan area. These are nondeductible commuting expenses.

*Two places of work.* If you work at two places in one day, whether or not for the same employer, you can deduct the expense of getting from one workplace to the other. However, if for some personal reason you don't go directly from one location to the other, you can't deduct more than the amount it would have cost you to go directly from the first location to the second.
Transportation expenses you have in going between home and a part-time job on a day off from your main job are commuting expenses. You can't deduct them.

However Guys, please note example 3 below which seems to answer the question about commuting miles:

Examples of deductible transportation. The following examples show when you can deduct transportation expenses based on the location of your work and your home.

Example 1. You regularly work in an office in the city where you live. Your employer sends you to a 1-week training session at a different office in the same city. You travel directly from your home to the training location and return each day. You can deduct the cost of your daily round-trip transportation between your home and the training location.

Example 2. Your principal place of business is in your home. You can deduct the cost of round-trip transportation between your qualifying home office and your client's or customer's place of business.

*Example 3. You have no regular office, and you don't have an office in your home. In this case, the location of your first business contact inside the metropolitan area is considered your office. Transportation expenses between your home and this first contact are nondeductible commuting expenses. Transportation expenses between your last business contact and your home are also nondeductible commuting expenses. While you can't deduct the costs of these trips, you can deduct the costs of going from one client or customer to another.*​


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## Aris (Sep 24, 2014)

El Gato said:


> So odd about that last one...theoretically when you go offline and go home you are commuting and so it should not be deductible. Had a tax guy from H&R Block give a tax presentation at our Green Light hub last month and he said the same.
> 
> However, I do also know that driving to and from a place of business that is not your regular place of business is deductible. Clearly, after dropping off your last pax you are conducting business away from what is your regular place of business (which is everywhere in this field) so I would think it is deductible?
> 
> ...


What do you think of the bridge toll that I pay to get to San Francisco where I start ubering.
I do Lift too and the miles that they give us are miles when we are in Driver mode. This is when we are online and not even on trip mode. It says we can deduct those miles in between trips as long as we are online.


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## El Gato (Mar 5, 2016)

As long as you are online I would think you could deduct those tolls as since you are actively looking for a client to pick up and thus conducting business. Again, as mentioned on another thread, it really is kind of the honor system and the IRS is trusting that you are truly looking for clients and the app was on at the time, because there is no real way for them to verify this if it really comes down to it.

If it came down to an audit what you would need to verify this would be documentation where you track the toll that was charged, on what date, which tollway it was (ie. [email protected] 183), and reason for using that toll. As another precautionary measure I would keep the toll statement (I am able to access mine online) and highlight where on the statement it shows you were charged so it corresponds to your own records. And if they really want to get nitty gritty about it I guess you could track the time you go online/offline as well during each shift (which I actually do so I can see how much my hourly rate is to help me be more effective at where I position myself) as that would correspond with your toll statement since that would show the exact time you went through the toll. Really what it comes down to is you are just trying to provide as much evidence as possible that can justify your reason for claiming it as a business expense and you are not just trying to rip off the government if it appears that you are just making stuff up. Uber Dude: "Oh yeh, I'm pretty sure I went through like $500 worth of tolls, let me just add that in there and watch that taxed owed number drop like a fly on Turbo Tax." IRS: "Cool. Now show me why you deducted those $500? Was it just you fooling around headed to Starbucks, or were you actually conducting business, or did you just make up those numbers to try and pull a fast one on us?"

That gets into lots of tracking, work, and can be a little time consuming. However, I think it is a great way to cover yourself in the event of an audit. Plus I think it is just good business practice in general to keep such good records, otherwise you are just driving around aimlessly with no real direction/plan which likely means you will not be as effective at being profitable in this business. You got to be able to tell when you are making money, and when you are losing money so you can adjust your techniques to make your self better.

Also keep in mind I am no tax professional, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn last night  

I just read lots of IRS publications, have watched those videos, and read those publications again, and read them again, and next year I will read them again.


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## Aris (Sep 24, 2014)

El Gato said:


> As long as you are online I would think you could deduct those tolls as since you are actively looking for a client to pick up and thus conducting business. Again, as mentioned on another thread, it really is kind of the honor system and the IRS is trusting that you are truly looking for clients and the app was on at the time, because there is no real way for them to verify this if it really comes down to it.
> 
> If it came down to an audit what you would need to verify this would be documentation where you track the toll that was charged, on what date, which tollway it was (ie. [email protected] 183), and reason for using that toll. As another precautionary measure I would keep the toll statement (I am able to access mine online) and highlight where on the statement it shows you were charged so it corresponds to your own records. And if they really want to get nitty gritty about it I guess you could track the time you go online/offline as well during each shift (which I actually do so I can see how much my hourly rate is to help me be more effective at where I position myself) as that would correspond with your toll statement since that would show the exact time you went through the toll. Really what it comes down to is you are just trying to provide as much evidence as possible that can justify your reason for claiming it as a business expense and you are not just trying to rip off the government if it appears that you are just making stuff up. Uber Dude: "Oh yeh, I'm pretty sure I went through like $500 worth of tolls, let me just add that in there and watch that taxed owed number drop like a fly on Turbo Tax." IRS: "Cool. Now show me why you deducted those $500? Was it just you fooling around headed to Starbucks, or were you actually conducting business, or did you just make up those numbers to try and pull a fast one on us?"
> 
> ...


Thanks for the extensive info. I will sure to log in my off trip online miles (dead miles) this year. I am going to have to take a loss this year because I did not know we can deduct dead miles until recently.


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

Aris said:


> Well it says right here that you can deduct from the last trip until you get home. Hat is commuting miles.


That's how taxi drivers write off miles..

HOWEVER!

That assumption assumes that you live in your service area...

If that is NOT the case than you can't deduct for driving into your service area. IE as long as you can in theory set to receive pings from your driveway you can deduct it.

If you don't have a daily mileage log, you can either shoot yourself in the foot, or fabricate a log and lie... Those are your choices.


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