Personal Vehicle Use Mileage Rate

2017 Standard Mileage Rates for Business, Medical and ... - IRS.gov
https://www.irs.gov/.../2017-standard-mileage-rates-for-business-and-medical-and-moving-announced
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Dec 13, 2016 ... Beginning on Jan. 1, 2017, the standard mileage rates for the use of a car (also vans, pickups or panel trucks) will be: 53.5 cents per mile for business miles driven, down from 54 cents for 2016. 17 cents per mile driven for medical or moving purposes, down from 19 cents for 2016.

 

Just don't forget you're required to keep a log of those miles. Bites a lot of folks in the butt come audit time.

 

I keep a small notebook in my pickup and record date, begin mile and end mile, and short description of reason (parts, post office, etc) then total miles. At tax time, total up miles and multiply by mileage rate. You will be surprised how many miles you use your vehicle for business. You cant use miles driving to your truck to drive your truck for hauling or driving home for time off. But, to clean your truck or work on your truck, its all write off mileage. If you buy a vehicle and register it in your company name, its all a write off. Thats the way i understand it.

 

There is one way you can deduct those miles. If you're an O/O and keep your truck at the terminal where you're leased on AND have a home office that meets the IRS' rules for "home office", then you can deduct those miles to and from the truck. Didn't get dinged by the feds when I was doing this.

As a side note, if you have a room that you really don't need or can live with out, clean it out and turn it into a home office for your business. Figure out the percentage of your house you're using for the office and take that percentage of all your utilities off on your taxes. Huge over the course of a year. Don't take my word for it. Talk to your tax accountant. They'll back me up on it.

 

We have two vehicles at home. Cadillac and a pickup. The pickup is primarily used for business related stuff, so it is totally part of the business operation and handled the same way as my semi. Depreciated expense and all costs associated with it written off, including tags. I live rural and need it to haul parts, oil, snowplow the drive and parking area, use it with a light grader assembly to maintain the gravel drive and parking area, etc. The wife will use it to come pick me up if I have to park the semi somewhere other than the house due to bad weather or other reason. If I have the wife go to the bank or the accountant with the car, she logs the miles and they are written off as business use of personal vehicle. Most times she just uses the pickup to save the reporting hassle. Now, that doesn't mean that she also doesn't stop off and get groceries with the pickup during that foray. The trip was primarily for business use, so no conflict. Just because one stops off at a Walmart and picks up a few groceries for their semi doesn't mean they cannot write off the semi expenses. Same thing applies to a smaller vehicle like my pickup used primarily for the business. It sure is nice writing off that $40K 2015 Silverado 2500 and the snow plow and all the fuel and maintenance for it.

 

I claimed them for 13 years and was never audited once. Some years it was "How much do I owe? Whats that plus (random couple thousand number of miles over) so I don't end up paying anything?" Maybe I was one of the lucky ones.

 

Yep... I do that at my house... but NOTE - the room has to be strictly an office, cannot have a bedroom with a desk stuck in the corner.

Anything house related you take the % off. Simple enough to build spreadsheets for this.

Mark

 

You can claim either the mileage or the maintenance/upkeep, you cannot claim both..