How to Calculate Vehicle Use on Schedule C
As a self-employed person, you may deduct an expense for the business portion of miles you put on your vehicle. This expense is claimed on Schedule C, as an attachment to the Form 1040 federal tax return you fill with the Internal Revenue Service. Before you can calculate your business vehicle expense, you must perform other calculations to determine the percentage of vehicle use that may be allocated specifically to your self-employment business activities. You must perform the same calculation regardless of whether you choose to claim expenses using the standard mileage rate or the actual-expense method.
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Instructions
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Calculate the total miles you put on the vehicle during the year. Subtract your end-of-year mileage from your mileage figure at the beginning of the year. If you didn't write down your mileage at the beginning of the year, look at your first vehicle service log for the year. An invoice for routine maintenance, such as an oil change usually has the odometer reading at the time of service.
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Compute your business miles for the year. Include mileage for business trips, meetings and deliveries. It's best to keep a mileage log during the year to record all of the trips you make for business reasons. However, if you didn't keep a log, use an Internet service such as MapQuest or Google Maps to calculate your miles. You must know each address you visited for business reasons to use this alternative method.
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Figure your commuting mileage for the year. Most self-employed people don't have many commuting miles. Commuting miles include those driven to a fixed work location. If you maintain an office outside your home, the miles you drive from your home to that office are commuting miles. You may use the same Internet method to create a commuting mileage log if you didn't keep a regular log during the year.
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Subtract your total business and commuting miles from the total miles you put on the vehicle during the year. The result equals your personal-use, or "Other" miles.
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Record your business, commuting and other miles on page two of Schedule C. Enter the information in Part IV, Information on Your Vehicle.
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