Do you use your personal vehicle for business-related reasons? This does not include the miles you spend traveling to the office from your home and back again. If so, you are able to deduct that mileage! You may be wondering what qualifies travel as business-related mileage? Well, let’s take a look at some examples.
- Client Meetings
If you meet with a client either at their place of business or at a designated meeting place, you are able to deduct those miles. - Product Delivery
If you use your personal vehicle to deliver products to your customers, this is mileage you can deduct. - Business Errands
As long as running to the bank, post office or even supplies stores involves business purposes, you can deduct those miles.
Now that you know what qualifies as business-related miles, you may be wondering what the deduction looks like. For 2017, the deduction is 53.5 cents per mile, which is actually down from 54 cents for 2016.
Keeping Track
It is very important to keep records of any business-related mileage done in your vehicle. By doing this, you will have a more accurate calculation. It is also best to have a detailed report for the IRS, in case they would have questions about your business-related mileage.
To keep track, you can either keep an Excel spreadsheet of your miles and update it weekly or monthly or there are many apps that you can download for your smartphone that makes keeping track of your miles easy!
Other Ways to Deduct Mileage
You also have the ability to deduct mileage you may drive for medical and charity reasons. Real quick on what qualifies for each of those:
Medical Mileage is 17 cents per mile driven for medical purposes. You are only able to deduct this if you have medical expenses that are more than 10% of your adjusted gross income.
If you do charity work, you are able to deduct any mileage you spent driving to and from that charity work. For Charity Mileage it is 14 cents per mile driven.
Any questions you may have on using mileage as a deduction, whether it be for business-related purposes or the others we talked about, please don’t hesitate to give us a call!
A Mazzo Accounting provides a variety of tax and accounting services to individuals and businesses in the Wyomissing, Reading, West Reading, Sinking Spring and Kenhorst areas, as well as towns and villages around the Greater Reading area. Our services for small to mid-size businesses include taxes, payroll services, accounting services, and bookkeeping services. We also provide a variety of services for individuals and they include tax return preparation as well as some accounting assistance.