Mileage Log | Fillable | PDF | WORD | RTF
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The expenses involved in driving a car can be a critical factor in the success of a business, and in most cases, these expenses are tax deductible. Very often, rather than tracking each and every expense involved in keeping a car on the road and operating it, you may find it more convenient to just keep track of the miles you have traveled. For most business owners, the IRS will allow you to multiply those business miles by a factor equating driven miles to a dollar-amount tax deduction.
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A Mileage Log becomes a critical document in computing the applicable tax deduction. They all must begin by identifying the specific vehicle that is being accounted for.
How to Fill Out a Mileage Log
A typical Mileage Log will be divided into seven columns. It may be convenient to print the Mileage Log in landscape orientation for ease of viewing.
The first column is for the date, and the second column is for the driver’s name. The third and fourth columns will be for the starting and ending miles. The fifth and sixth columns are for the business miles and personal miles. Finally, the seventh column is for the total miles. Of course, this last column must be equal to the sum of the business miles and the personal miles.
It is especially important to accurately separate business miles from personal miles, as the latter are not deductible. If the same driver makes another trip after another person uses the car on the same day, it is perfectly acceptable to detail a second trip on the next available line of the list.
Of course, in order for this form to be of any practical use, the total business miles for each vehicle must be tallied for the entire tax year. If more than one vehicle is involved, the totaled business miles driven with all your vehicles should be tallied and made available to you tax department.
A great way to save a lot of the time needed to complete a Mileage Log is to use one of the App’s available from the various smartphone providers specifically for this purpose. A word of caution is appropriate, however. Smartphones are notorious for being often lost or stolen. They are also prone to failure, and if they fail, it may be difficult or impossible to recover the data they held. So, if you do avail yourself of this great convenience, please be sure to do frequent backups of your Mileage Log, thus avoiding what might otherwise prove to be a difficult situation, indeed.
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