Patrick --
If the IRS catches you including a side trip that is in any way not work related they will call you on it. In other words, as it has been explained to me, if you go directly to the customers home and than directly back to your home/shop, both ways count as work mileage. However, if you make a side trip to the dentist on the way home, and that trip is not work related, that entire trip from the customers home, to the dentist, and then home, according to the IRS, technically counts as a personal trip and can't be deducted. Obviously we're dealing with technicalities here. The IRS is really only interested in trip by trip documented work related mileage. They don't care what you do on your personal miles. They do care about work related mileage documentation, though. So, as only a suggestion, document the round trip to the customers home as work related and subtract however miles out of the way you went on that side trip from the total miles of that work trip and that's your work related miles for that service call.
I use Excel to document my work miles. (I love the way I can plug in formulas to do all the math for me in neat little columns.) I only document work miles. Anything not work miles is, by definition, personal miles. If I were using the above math, an example of the above trip might look something like this...
<date> customer name start odo reading: 100 end odo reading: 120
<date> customer name start odo reading: 125 end odo reading:
That missing five miles between end of customer call 1 and the beginning of customer call 2 is the five miles you used to go to the dentist and shows up as personal miles. Or medical miles if you know how to document that correctly.
I doubt if many piano technicians have ever been audited for questionable tax returns. Our income does not change that much from year to year and there aren't too many ways we can get creative in our bookkeeping. That said, the only time the IRS is ever going to even want to look at your mileage is if you get audited. And that's not going to happen, right?
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Geoff Sykes, RPT
Los Angeles CA
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Original Message:
Sent: 12-01-2022 06:41
From: Patrick Greene
Subject: Tracking miles for business
Scott, I am with you on this. I was going to use a mileage tracking app like Mileagewise, but I am not as technologically efficient as I would like to be. I was still having to hand enter destinations into the phone and I thought that if I had to do that, it would just be much easier to physically write it down. So I ordered some of the Adam's mileage logs. From what I can discern, the IRS needs to see exactly how many miles to and from the work destination. What I am unclear about is whether the IRS needs to see the mileage I drove to Lowe's, Home depot or the dentist that is outside of business. Sales folks from Mileagewise keep saying that the IRS will want to know exactly how many miles I drove for personal reasons along with the miles driven for piano related business and I am not sure if that is correct.
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Patrick Greene
OWNER
Knoxville TN
(865) 384-6582
Original Message:
Sent: 11-30-2022 23:51
From: Scott Cole
Subject: Tracking miles for business
I'm still in the stone age. I use a paper schedule book. Each morning, I zero my car's meter. At the end of the day, I simply write the number on that day in my book. I also refuse to pay extra for this app or that gadget. Quickbooks also has a mileage tracking function. I'm too lazy to figure it out.
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Scott Cole, RPT
rvpianotuner.com
Talent, OR
(541-601-9033
Original Message:
Sent: 11-30-2022 16:14
From: Jeffrey Gegner
Subject: Tracking miles for business
I don't know if you have a iPhone or if its available for other phones, I use Everlance. It tracks mileage, you pick if its personal mileage or business mileage. If you add a bank account it tracks deposits and expenses, you pick if the items are business or not. Best of all.... it was either free or very inexpensive.
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Jeffrey Gegner
Tipton IN
(765) 860-5900
Original Message:
Sent: 11-11-2022 08:29
From: Patrick Greene
Subject: Tracking miles for business
So I started my business full time last month and I engaged the services of a CPA. She said that one must keep mileage logs. Luckily I have this information for 2022, but I only recorded business mileage and not personal mileage. and in years prior, I have only recorded the miles driven without beginning/ending odometer readings. Now I am hearing that when keeping a mileage log, one must log every single trip be it business or personal. Is this how you all do it?
I did a search on this in the archives and 2015 was the last time this was mentioned, so I thought maybe things had changed a bit.
I am looking at an app called Mileagewise. Its a little pricy - $199.00 for a year, but it is supposed to make all this very easy.
Thank you
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Patrick Greene
OWNER
Knoxville TN
(865) 384-6582
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