Are you tracking your mileage?
January 12th, 2008 | by mbhunter |It’s only a week and a half into the new year, so there’s not much time lost if you haven’t. If you use your vehicle for business, moving, or charity work, you can claim an itemized deduction of a certain amount per mile driven if you don’t otherwise deduct your actual vehicle expenses.
There are three tiers of mileage deductions: business miles (48.5 cents per mile in 2007), medical or moving miles (20 cents per mile in 2007) and charity service miles (14 cents per mile in 2007). The medical miles are deductible only to the extent that your medical expenses exceed 7.5% of your adjusted gross income.
Like all deductions, though, you need to substantiate them. Publication 463 explains what records need to be kept. Keeping mileage records basically involves recording date, purpose, location, and odometer readings for each trip. The different tiers of mileage can be extracted from these records.
It only takes about 15 seconds to write down the odometer reading and location right before you start or right after you stop. Just keep a notebook and a writing implement in the car for this purpose. If you have the mileage records, you can use them. If you don’t, you can’t. 
5 Responses to “Are you tracking your mileage?”
By Bargain Hunter on Jan 16, 2008 | Reply
This is a major nuisance. I can’t believe anyone is doing it for 14 or 20 cents especially if all you have is a ton of short trips.
By Me on Jan 17, 2008 | Reply
Business miles for a personal business yes, but for employment you have to reach 2% of your AGI (I believe). I have kept track for the past two years only to be told by my CPA I don’t even come close.
Give it a try, if it is a waste of your time – don’t bother.
By Vivek on Mar 6, 2008 | Reply
I dont get it. Business expense on travelling is always deductible. There is no limit.
By Mileage Payback on May 14, 2008 | Reply
Rather than go through all the hassles of logging your business, personal and medical mileage manually, if you drive a lot for business then you should consider getting an Automatic Mileage Logger. It’s inexpensive, and tracks your mileage via GPS and automatically creates a FULLY IRS COMPLIANT MILEAGE LOG FOR YOU. There’s a monthly fee for the GSM wireless service it uses to report your data back. And vehicle tracking and emergency notification are available options, which may entitle you to an insurance discount. The device is likely considered tax deductible too.
We’ve been using ours for two weeks and so far we’ll be able to write off 366miles, recovering over $180 is business mileage deductions and the total is growing!
For more info go to: http://www.mileagepayback.com
By Jesse on Aug 10, 2009 | Reply
why don’t you check out MyMileageGenie – automates mileage tracking using GPS in blackberry and calculates cost/mile, etc. very intuitive http://www.mymileagegenie.com