Track Your Miles to Save Taxes

The IRS allows deductions for driving your car for business, charitable or medical purposes. Business mileage includes driving from one job to a second job, driving from your workplace to a client’s place of business, and driving to perform business tasks such as picking up office supplies or going to the post office. If you work out of your home, driving from your home to meet with a client also counts. However, commuting between your home and a regular workplace is never deductible. Mileage for volunteer work is also deductible, as is driving to medical appointments.

To get these deductions, you have to keep records. The IRS is notorious for disallowing vehicle deductions when the amount is based on estimates or incomplete records. The standard for many years was a paper and pencil log, kept in a small notebook or special log book found at office supply stores. Now there are apps that do that automatically using your phone’s GPS function. At year-end, you can export the data into a spreadsheet to keep with the rest of your records. Some apps even let you send the data directly to your accountant. For iPhone, MileIQ is a popular app, as is MileageBug. For Andoid, TripLog is the most popular, with over 400,000 downloads.  Just make sure you pick some method and use it consistently! Please contact our office for more information.