A guy drives a company truck over the road, he is paid by the mile, Can he deduct the miles he drives that he is not paid for while in that company truck?
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Are you referring to the dead head miles? Who is paying for the fuel? Mileage is to allow for the cost of operating the truck, not to compensate the driver for his time. I would say no.In other words, a democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it.
Alexis de Tocqueville -
Everything is paid for by the company for the truckComment
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My Two Cents
What I am hearing is that the company owns the truck and pays for its expenses including gas, oil, repairs and maintenance, etc. If that's right then he can't deduct mileage or anything else for the truck. He also can't deduct any other expenses he does not actually pay.Comment
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What if he is paid zip code to zip code and say the mileage is 200 miles but to the actual site is 250. Can he take the milage deduction for the extra 50 miles?Originally posted by sdrummond View PostComment
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It doesn't matter how they choose to pay him. The mileage deduction is operational expenses of the vehicle. If he has no out of pocket expenses he can't deduct anything. If on the other hand the company only paid for fuel 1-way and he had to pay for the fuel on the way back, he could deduct the fuel.
What you might be able to do is the meals & incidental expense deduction if he travels away from his home overnight.Comment
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If I'm understanding correctly, the company pays for all the expenses of operating the truck. Thus, the driver has no expenses related to driving the truck. So there would be no deduction, mileage or otherwise, for the driver operating the truck. The fact he may not be getting his per mile or hourly rate for a portion of the trip does not come into play.
Example: I drive back and forth to a client. I can't bill the client for the time. I can't write off the mileage because I didn't get paid for the drive time. In this example, I would get it because I incurred expense on my vehicle for business purposes, but the non payment of the mileage or time by the client is not taken into account.
ATG
PS: I always bill the client for the time spent driving to and from.
"Congress has spoken to this issue through its audible silence."
Anyone ever notice they beat the daylights out of the definition of a child, but they don't spend much time at all defining "parent"?Comment
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no milage
You cannot use standard mileage expense deduction for a heavy truck, no matter what any of the other circumstances are or who is entitled to a deduction. Only actual expenses are allowed. In this case the dead-headed miles are just a part of driving a truck and are somewhat factored into the pay rate for the truck. They are really no different than the hour each way many of us spend driving to work.AJ, EAComment
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