I would stay away from the business use of home form unless that is a really big deduction. The 2290 should have been sent in by aug 31 it is 550. You will need an irs stamped copy to renew your truck licenses. All license and road tax gets deducted on schedule c line 23. Also meals are at 75% of 52.00 a day. figured at by the quarter day. If his log book shows leaving home at 8 am and is gone for all the rest of that day you deduct 75% of 3/4 of the day.

Omega there are far less head aches if you pay a competent CPA to handle all of this for you.

$350 a yr and I'm outa here! Well worth it to me.

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Thank you Native Dancer and Road Medic. I think it's starting to make sense. Florida provided the worst directions on how to do this and has not even sent us a way to renew the decals for 2008, no web page to access either. I have to call them on Monday. It was never once mentioned in the IFTA directions that there was a base price that I was working with. I assumed that each states surcharge was multiplied by the gallons bought in each state! There was no explanation as to what the purpose of the form is. That would've helped, you think? LOL.

Road Medic, I'll see if I can scan one quarter and get that to you. Thanks so much for offering to look it over. I think we are due a refund now.

I'm doing his IRS taxes for 2007 now too.....oh the fun.

I would stay away from the business use of home form unless that is a really big deduction. The 2290 should have been sent in by aug 31 it is 550. You will need an irs stamped copy to renew your truck licenses. All license and road tax gets deducted on schedule c line 23. Also meals are at 75% of 52.00 a day. figured at by the quarter day. If his log book shows leaving home at 8 am and is gone for all the rest of that day you deduct 75% of 3/4 of the day.

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Oh good, that is info i can use. I know about the 2290, but what licenses does he need to renew? His authority? And what is the due date to renew these licenses?

Now the meal deduction makes more sense too! He can deduct $52 a day for every day not on the road (not home) but only a percentage of the actual days he leaves and returns home. (75% of that total can be claimed as a deduction)

Oh i'd like to use the Business Use of Home because our interest paid was $12,000 in mortgage payments and almost $5000 in real estate taxes. I think we have a good reason to claim it?

CPA for $350 a year? That's not too bad. Worth looking into. Well since I have no clue what I'm doing it seems, this is a headache learning all of these regulations, rules, deadlines. But I do like the advantage of knowing the details, regulations, and tax stuff like this.

Oh, off topic real quick. He just got a $700 ticket in CO last night!

They have a law that you must have a muffler for your compression/engine brake. Who knew about this law! They did a full inspection on his truck at the weigh station and this is how they found out he has an engine brake without a muffler. The worst part of it is that he is a very courteous trucker who never uses his engine brake in city limits, never speeds, and overall he has a very quiet truck up to all DOT regulations. Engine brake was switched off when he was inspected and DOT guy made him turn it on. The DOT guy could have given him a warning but he wanted to be a _______!

So I did research and found Montana and Nevada also have this law. So he's going to have to put his muffler back on and keep it on. His truck ran better without it, ... oh well.

As for the who knew about that law its posted on all the interstates and on many of the main state roads.

Don't just put any muffler back on. Get one with as little restriction as possible. Thats what got him in trouble in the first place, NO muffler or resonator. Putting even a gutted muffler on will save head aches.

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If you itemize you can write off the whole thing.

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Business use of home is only good for the portion of your home dedicated to the truck. For instance if you use one bedroom for an office space all that can be used for is an office. You take the square footage of the bedroom/office and divide into the total square footage of the house. Say you have a 2000 sq ft house and the bedroom is 200 sq ft. Thats 10%. So you can take 10% of the taxes, interest and utlities paid.In your case this would be about a 1700.00 deduction which would save you around 450 in taxes. enough to pay a cpa to do them. I would go along with I think brickman mentioned it, and hire someone at least for this first year.

Brickman is 100% right on the CPA....They'll more than pay their own keep plus THEY can be a deduction.As for the muffler issue,if he's like me and likes the sound of open 8" jaking off and nothing else will do him,have him get a stainless muffler from a GOOD manufacturer...take a die grinder and circumcise it down both sides( that will hurt bad considering what you just paid for it),gut it and then weld her back together,grind it down and polishing the welds as best you can starting with a file(after grinding) and work thru a scotch brite pad and finish with heavy grit rubbing compound...A little road grime later it'll look as good as new.Most major metro areas and states for that matter are getting tough on this and will put something on you that ajax won't take off for breaking the rules.$700.00 is a pretty good size spurring but I've heard horror stories of DOT shutting you down until you get it fixed....Imagine the gouge if you had to pay full price for a muffler and shop rate plus service call to have it put on at a coop at 1 am in Goobersville,Oklahoma.They hurt him but it could've been worse.

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"I have trouble remembering names,may I just call you Scrote ?"

NO HABLA JIBBER JABBER

"Haven't I told you a million times not to exaggerate"

Every so often, I like to stick my head out the window, look up, and smile for a satellite picture

CBA # 454

Don't forget, write off anything he buys on the road. Keep an envelope for ea trip, and he can write off clothes, coveralls, a new CB radio or anything he uses for business even if he buys them at home. Taxes are tricky and the FEDs want you to get all you deserve back which is 00000000000000000000