# [UBER] Tax summary mileage is 0



## mockbn (Jun 25, 2020)

I started driving w/ uber eats in June. A few days ago I tried to download the monthly summary for that month and it shows the total number of trips, but the mileage is 0. I wasted my time calling uber support, and they told me that I can see my mileage individually in each trip, which of course is a waste of time, and only includes the miles for the trip itself, not every mile I drove while I was online (or at least is that the tax summary information page says) https://www.uber.com/us/en/drive/tax-information/tax-documents/

Any ideas?


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## Uberguyken (May 10, 2020)

Yep download TRIPLOG and use it going forward.


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## mockbn (Jun 25, 2020)

Im driving for uber eats only (no passengers). Do i need to keep a mileage record for each delivery or just a record for the day?

Thank you.


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## Tony73 (Oct 12, 2016)

Better just doing a yearly mileage estimate. Odometer Jan 22k - Dec 45k that means you drove 23k miles in that year. If the majority of those miles were Ubering take 3k miles off. Stop giving yourself more work to do. 😉


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## Stevie The magic Unicorn (Apr 3, 2018)

You needed to instead have a daily log of the miles you actually drove.


Uber’s reporting of mileage fails to come remotely close to the actual mileage driven.

It feels like it’s a ploy to reduce future lawsuit settlements but it could be programming issues.


I’m sorry but the only thing I can tell you is you should have started your own log day one. Reproducing it now is next to impossible.


You can guess and pray you don’t get audited or you can not write off your expenses.



A log of each trip is tedious and pointless. A daily log hand written should be more than adequate.


My three things you need for a good log.

1. Make it hand written with a variety of writing instruments.
2. At least 80-100 entries.
3. Keep a second log in XML format with the paper log as a backup.


Once you exceed 50 entries or so it becomes too tedious to total up, let alone verify.
Hand written with different pens/pencils/ a crayon a couple of times... makes it look real. 



So your log needs to look real and be too much of a PITA to disprove that a government beuracrat won’t bother trying,


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## Older Chauffeur (Oct 16, 2014)

Stevie The magic Unicorn said:


> You needed to instead have a daily log of the miles you actually drove.
> 
> Uber's reporting of mileage fails to come remotely close to the actual mileage driven.
> 
> ...


I agree with everything but the need to use different writing instruments. My logs going back years were written with the same kind of pen- kept in the car with the log. Pen runs out of ink, take another one out of the package I bought at Office Depot.


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## Uberguyken (May 10, 2020)

Triplog gives you a detail of every trip and you don't have to do anything...and if you ever get audited that's what the IRS is going to expect you to have a detailed trip log of every trip you've taken.


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## Stevie The magic Unicorn (Apr 3, 2018)

Older Chauffeur said:


> I agree with everything but the need to use different writing instruments. My logs going back years were written with the same kind of pen- kept in the car with the log. Pen runs out of ink, take another one out of the package I bought at Office Depot.


Read between the lines.

I would never condone faking a mileage log to get more back from the irs than what you deserve.

Also if the log looks like it was bought fresh from Walmart the night before your Audit that looks bad to. Tie it to your dogs collar or toddlers belt loop and let them drag it around the yard a few hours.

Spill some coffee on a few pages and stuff it in the fridge. Then bury it under a pile of dirty laundry to pick up your smell.

The way people get caught for mileage logs is.

1. Not having one.
2. Doing a bad job faking it.

But I would never condone faking a log just so you don't have to pay extra to the IRS so it's a moot point.


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## FLKeys (Dec 27, 2018)

If you start keeping a paper log of every trip from day one you will find it is not hard to do at all. Sure at first it may take some time, however you will quickly work out a system and it becomes painless to keep a log of every trip. I have been doing it now for over 2 years and it is just second nature.

Many suggest using an app to track your mileage. I tried that. Did a 30 day test while still keeping my paper log. Found the app to be 3% less than my odometer readings. To me that is unacceptable. Driving about 40,000 miles a year that 3% would be 1,200 miles or $690.00 in lost mileage deductions. I'll stick to the paper record.

Also my paper record helps me catch where Uber and Lyft short pay a trip because of their GPS/System reporting issues. Sure it doesn't happen often however when it does it is usually 3-5 miles off that they did not pay me fore. Put in for a fare adjustment and get paid.

I use a Steno Pad, found it to be easiest to use in a car. Next available line gets date, mileage, and starting address. stop to pick up pax, record mileage, address, brief description. Drop off pax record same information. Repeat for every stop. As time permits use tablet to transfer information to excel spreadsheet.


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## Launchpad McQuack (Jan 8, 2019)

mockbn said:


> Do i need to keep a mileage record for each delivery or just a record for the day?


Be aware that there is an ongoing debate on this forum regarding this question. It's been going on as long as I've been here, which is almost two years. The posters involved fall into three general camps.

The first camp will tell you that you don't need to keep any mileage records at all. Just use the tax summary that Uber gives you.

The second camp will tell you that you should just log your starting and ending odometer reading each day that you drive.

The third camp will tell you that you need to keep a log of all the stops that you make throughout the day. Each entry should include starting address, ending address, and the reason for driving that leg of the trip.

I don't know who is right. Personally, I keep a detailed mileage log that includes every stop that I make. I don't know if it is actually necessary, but it's what I choose to do until I see convincing evidence that the IRS will accept my mileage deduction without it. The business mileage deduction is a huge deduction for us, and I don't want to risk having it disallowed in the unlikely scenario that my tax returns are audited.


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## AdAstra (Jun 26, 2020)

Launchpad McQuack said:


> the unlikely scenario that my tax returns are audited.


exactly.

IRS has limited resources and maximizes their return on investment 
going after wealthy citizens. Not poor gig workers padding miles.&#129315; &#128514;

yeah, A tiny % of gig workers get audited, But very rarely


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## Stevie The magic Unicorn (Apr 3, 2018)

Launchpad McQuack said:


> Be aware that there is an ongoing debate on this forum regarding this question. It's been going on as long as I've been here, which is almost two years. The posters involved fall into three general camps.
> 
> The first camp will tell you that you don't need to keep any mileage records at all. Just use the tax summary that Uber gives you.
> 
> ...


I'm of the opinion that the first camp "just use the uber tax summer" fails to cover all you business mileage, like remotely close to it at all.

The third camp is in fact what the IRS says by the letter, however the second camp is probobly just the lazy way to manage it, and in reality probobly not enough to survive an audit.

In all reality the third camp is right by the letter of the IRS law, with the lowest probability of inaccuracies.


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## Tony73 (Oct 12, 2016)

AdAstra said:


> exactly.
> 
> IRS has limited resources and maximizes their return on investment
> going after wealthy citizens. Not poor gig workers padding miles.&#129315; &#128514;
> ...


Our records indicate you owe $3.47...


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