# Drove Lyft/Uber Simultaneously How to do Taxes?



## crowsandcats (Sep 17, 2015)

Can anyone on here tell me what to do? I talked to an ex accountant, and they said to just add up all my miles driven summed from both platforms (including miles driven between trips) and use that number to calculate my per mile deduction total.

So, basically to cut through all the fluff sent out by Uber and Lyft, I should just do Earnings from Lyft + Uber - (.56)total miles driven due to rideshare.

Is that right? What form should I use? I also have a couple W2s from some odd jobs I did on the side too.

My W2s only witheld about $300, but I'm probably looking at about $10,000 dollars in deductions due to the miles I drove for rideshare. Does that mean I would get a check from the IRS for about $10,300?

Can anyone post or link to a sticky on here, because I sense that this question has been beaten to death in one form or another? Most of us want to know the same thing, albeit with a limited amount of personal variation:
1) How do I do my taxes if I only drove for Lyft?
2) How do I do my taxes if I only drove for Uber?
3) How do I do my taxes if I drove for both Lyft and Uber?
4 How do I do my taxes if I drover for any combination of Lyft and Uber and also received W2s from employers?


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## Altima ATL (Jul 13, 2015)

Sorry to be Mr Obvious here but.....

If you need to ask that question you should see a CPA or Tax Accountant.


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## Older Chauffeur (Oct 16, 2014)

Consulting a tax professional might be a good idea. But if you want to try it yourself, I would suggest you buy a tax program such as TurboTax Deluxe CD version. Costco has it for $49.95 sometimes on sale for $39.95. Whichever plan you use must have Schedule C. If you use TT online you have to upgrade to Home and Business to get Schedule C. That is the form where you report income and expenses from self employment, and yes, you report both Uber and Lyft on it together. TT will walk you through it, asking for info from the 1099 forms and your business mileage, etc.
You won't get $10000 back, because that is a deduction off your business income, not a credit for money withheld. It does reduce your taxable income, and therefore the amount of tax you owe.
Your W2 income goes in another area, but TurboTax will ask you about that, too.


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## Body Politic (Jan 1, 2016)

You report your actual mileage. If you didn't log your actual mileage, combine your Uber and Lyft mileage. Since Uber's mileage report only includes passenger miles, there will be no overlap between your reported Uber and reported Lyft mileage (assuming you don't still have the Lyft app in Driver mode when you have Uber passengers in your car). In fact your mileage will be underreported because it won't count the mileage between when you accept an Uber ride (and presumably turn the Lyft app off) and when you arrive to pick the passenger up. But at least the mileage you do claim can be documented and explained in the event you get audited.


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## KMANDERSON (Jul 19, 2015)

Good thing about Lyft they track all your miles while you in drive mode.Uber only tracks from the time you pick up the passanger


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## Body Politic (Jan 1, 2016)

KMANDERSON said:


> Good thing about Lyft they track all your miles while you in drive mode.Uber only tracks from the time you pick up the passanger


Yep, so if you just add up both you won't be duplicating/over-reporting your miles. Unfortunately you will be slightly under-reporting your miles since it won't include the miles between when you accept an Uber ride and when you arrive at the pickup location. Still, just adding them up is the safest way to handle it if you haven't manually logged all your active miles.


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## Older Chauffeur (Oct 16, 2014)

Crowsandcats, do you have an update? What did you decide to do?


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## StarzykCPA (Aug 6, 2015)

KMANDERSON said:


> Good thing about Lyft they track all your miles while you in drive mode.Uber only tracks from the time you pick up the passanger


Yep definitely like that about lyft.



Older Chauffeur said:


> Crowsandcats, do you have an update? What did you decide to do?


I'm sure you could spend endless hours reading about this stuff. At least I can


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## Older Chauffeur (Oct 16, 2014)

StarzykCPA said:


> Yep definitely like that about lyft.
> 
> I'm sure you could spend endless hours reading about this stuff. At least I can


Yeah, but I'm goofing off. Are you supposed to be doing someone's taxes?


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## Redtop (Oct 20, 2015)

From your perspective, you have a single business which is "Transportation Network Company Driver." I would combine your total income from both Lyft and Uber and your total expenses.

Expenses will probably be the IRS rate (I think it's 57 or 57.5 cents/mile for 2015) for all driving done in connection with ridesharing. In my case, I have two cars, one of which I use exclusively for ridesharing, so I deduct all those miles. If you use the car for both, you should keep a daily log. I would say that anytime you have the app on and are willing to accept a ride, that's deductible mileage. So if you live 10 miles from the "hot" area that you drive to and look for riders in, but you are willing to accept riders while driving there, I'd deduct those miles.

If you haven't kept a log, make your best estimate, but be prepared for the IRS to challenge.

You must have a profit motive in the business. However, most Uber drivers have that. Businesses without a "profit motive" might be, for example, someone who likes doing woodworking and buys thousands of dollars of woodworking equipment and sells the odd table or chair but won't ever really make enough money to cover his expenses. At one time the IRS rule of thumb was that you had to make a profit two years out of five.

Why this gets interesting is because I can easily see a TNC driver showing a loss. The 57 cents is an IRS estimate of all the costs of operating a vehicle, but most of us are not incurring costs that high. We don't drive "average" cost vehicles but less expensive ones, we drive older cars that have already been "depreciated," many of us are not paying extra for the TNC insurance we should have. So on an accounting basis we could well be losing money. There's no question that all miles are deductible if they are incurred in the ordinary course of business, including miles driving to a pickup or driving to an area we think will be good to get pax. If you're in a city with low rates, it could be almost impossible to beat the 57 cents. I don't know what the IRS will do about that They could revise the 57 cents for TNC's (there are already different rates for moving expenses, medical trips, and charitable use). But there would be a lot of political pressure to not do so. Republicans will object to anything that "increases" taxes, Democrats will object that Fat Cats can deduct their company-paid cars and limos but people trying to scratch out a living from Uber are told to bend over and enjoy it, and possibly both parties will see us as "Small Businesses" that they pretend to love so much.

If you drive 10,000 miles, you can deduct $5700 for your income on Schedule C. If you have a net loss, this can offset income from other jobs. But again, I'm not sure what would happen if you never made an accounting profit. Probably you would have to file Schedule C but limit your deductions to total revenue.


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## UberTaxPro (Oct 3, 2014)

Redtop said:


> Expenses will probably be the IRS rate (I think it's 57 or 57.5 cents/mile for 2015) for all driving done in connection with ridesharing. In my case, I have two cars, one of which I use exclusively for ridesharing, so I deduct all those miles. If you use the car for both, you should keep a daily log.


You do know that you need to keep a mileage log even though you use the car 100% for business and have another car right?


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