Business mileage

[Gretel]

Let's say you run a lawnmowing business (year round in the south). Are we saying that if I do Sam Suburban's lawn for more than a year, I can't deduct the expenses of my beat up truck to go there?

Now, apples and oranges start to mix, maybe with some cherries? Normally a lawnmowing business by default has no regular work place, unless OIH applies. All we, I think, talk about is regular workplace and then go to temporary ones.

I would say if one goes to the post office every day or almost every day, that this would make the post office to a regular second workplace. If you one day stop at the post office, another at a client, then another again to get supplies and some days you go straight to work, these are all temporary workplace.

For Bart: Everyday post office translates into miles deductible only from post office (one workplace) to main workplace. Second scenario translates into all miles on stopping days are deductibles for that trip.

[Bird Legs]

A Step Further

Let us suppose that Old Wests truck does breakdown and in order to get to the yard work 5 miles down the road, he hitches up his equipment to his bicycle and rides that to the job site. Would this mileage be deductible?

[Bees Knees]

A lawn mowing business needs to have a home office, if the same customer is going to be serviced year after year.

If he rides his bike, its not auto mileage because the definition of a car for purposes of deducting the standard mileage method requires the vehicle to be a four wheel vehicle. A motorcycle cannot take the standard mileage method. All of the Rev Procs that set the standard mileage rate for the year talk about automobiles, not bikes, motorcycles, or go carts.

[LTS]

business miles

owner drives to office - commute.
later in the morning, owner drives to post office and back - business miles.

owner drives to office, but on the way stops at post office - business miles for the extra miles driven over the direct commute.

[oceanlovin'ea]

Better change route

If she goes to the post office or bank after she leaves the office at the end of the day, she could count those miles as business since she is going from the office.

She better change her schedule, especially since the post office is on a direct route from her home to work.

Easy to do post office later. Bank might be difficult depending on the time she leaves the office.

Thanks, LTS, for just stating the facts.

Linda F

[Black Bart]

The lawn business

raises some interesting questions too.

Typically, the lawnmower guy works out of his house. He drives from there to the customer's house; say five miles away.

The question is -- is this a temporary job? He might mow this guy's yard for ten years running, but he only goes to that yard about every two weeks during the season -- maybe a dozen times. 12 visits/10 years/120 days -- still not a full year if only the work days count. But do all the days -- both work and non-working -- count toward the one-year temp job limit? It's the same principle as my going to the post office on two non-consecutive days, isn't it?

On most small clients, it hardly matters (10 miles @ 44 1/2 cents), but on a large-scale yard maintenance operation with multiple employees, it might amount up to substantial deductions.

I've never come across any examples in tax advice books that delve into the questions that have been raised in this thread and give an exact answer. In fact, Bees' answer about the transformation of the commuting expense to business expense by virtue of stopping at a client's house on the way to the office and his rationale/explanation for it (temp work and job-to-job travel) is the only time I''ve ever seen this question fully and completely addressed by anybody.

I think we all mostly aren't 100% sure about these little trips and just use our own judgment about their deductibility because it's usually no money to speak of even if it's disallowed.

I wonder what IRS' position on the yard man's trips to his customer's house year after year is?

[Gary]

My Gigs

Let me return to a question i asked during tax season. I play in a band. I don't have an office in the home since my office is not used exclusively for the business. However, all my gigs are temporary work locations. Can I deduct the mileage from home to the gig?

All responses previously were that I could not deduct mileage, so i did not so so.

Gary

[Corduroy Frog]

Yes

Gary, I don't know why you couldn't deduct mileage if your music produces revenue for you and you claim the revenue. You should be able to deduct every mile.

[LTS]

more business miles

If she goes to the post office or bank after she leaves the office at the end of the day, she could count those miles as business since she is going from the office.

She better change her schedule, especially since the post office is on a direct route from her home to work.

Easy to do post office later. Bank might be difficult depending on the time she leaves the office.

Thanks, LTS, for just stating the facts.

Linda F

your welcome.
and i think - at the end of the day senario - the business miles would only be the excess miles driven over the direct commute miles home.

[Black Bart]

Well; okay, but

...the business miles would only be the excess miles driven over the direct commute miles home.

what's your answer to Bees' "Example" on page two wherein he says that, because of the stop at the client's house, the Revenue Ruling allows the whole 11 miles (not just a minor part) to be considered as business travel rather than as commuting?

Do you disagree that such a conclusion can correctly be drawn from the RR?

[Corduroy Frog]

Temporary arrangement

Actually, I went up against Bees Knees on this, and what appears to be the defining element is that it is a temporary job.

I know "boomers" who work out of their union hall in Detroit and jump up to work out of their state when skilled construction workers are needed in Indiana, Ohio, etc. These guys deduct ALL their mileage, and I've always wondered how they did it. Now I know. Some of these guys tell me if they claim moving expenses, this disallows their mileage, because it takes away their "temporary" status.

[Gene V]

Gary, I don't know why you couldn't deduct mileage if your music produces revenue for you and you claim the revenue. You should be able to deduct every mile.

To refresh you minds, here is the previous post from Gary, the mileage could be a maybe.

http://www.thetaxbook.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3937&highlight=gary

[LTS]

Pub 463

what's your answer to Bees' "Example" on page two wherein he says that, because of the stop at the client's house, the Revenue Ruling allows the whole 11 miles (not just a minor part) to be considered as business travel rather than as commuting?

Do you disagree that such a conclusion can correctly be drawn from the RR?

I guess i am guilty of the logical fallacy.
Pub 463, ch 4 - Transportation.

Commuting expenses: you cannot deduct between your home and regular place of work. It is personal. You cannot deduct commuting expenses even if you work during the commute.

Two places of work: If you work at 2 places in one day, deduct expenses of getting from one workplace to the other. if for some personal reason you do not go directly from one location to the other, you cannot deduct more than the amount it would have cost to go directly from first location to the second.

I don't see going to the post office or bank, or even stopping to see a client, as a temporary work location. It is an ordinary/necessary Transportation Expense: 1) Getting from one workplace to another in the course of your business when traveling within your tax home. 2) Visiting clients or customers.

[oceanlovin'ea]

different scenarios

We have the people who have a home office. They work out of their home. They can deduct mileage anytime to go to post office, office supply, clients homes, etc if it is business related. That is me.

Then you have people who work in fields where the job takes them to clients homes to do lawn work, maintenance, cleaning, etc. They may not claim home office but they do their preparation for their work there. They order parts, make phone calls, maintain their equipment at their home. So their mileage should be deductible when they go to do the work for their clients.

Then you have people who have a side job, like a musician, who does gigs maybe weekly or monthly, or whenever they get a job. They may not be able to claim home office but they do practice and prepare for their performances at their home. Their mileage to their gigs or to practice should be deductible too.

Then you have a "large group" of people who are small business operators who have an office where they perform their work, whatever it may be. They probably do a lot of work at their home also but the office is the primary location of their business. They too have to go to post office, office supply, supply, grocery store, etc. Some of there people may be sole proprietors and some may be s corporations.

This last group was who I was really asking about. So from the discussions it seems that they must go to the office and then go back to the post office or bank or whereever for the mileage to be deductible. In that case, I guess it would be at the perogative of the business owner as to the value of their time to drive back to post office so they could deduct the mileage or whethere they would rather just forgo that deduction.

If an s corporation, the business could reimburse the employee for out of pocket auto expenses if it is stated in the minutes of a board meeting that the corporation will do that.

Since I do have a home office, I look at things differently as to what I can do and what others can do. Also most of my small businesses work out of their home and don't have an separate office location. So I just wanted to be clear as to what I was telling this client.

Again thanks.

[Black Bart]

Good quotes, LT

I guess i am guilty of the logical fallacy. Pub 463, ch 4 - Transportation...You cannot deduct commuting expenses even if you work during the commute...I don't see going to the post office or bank, or even stopping to see a client, as a temporary work location. It is an ordinary/necessary Transportation Expense...

That sounds so...hmmmm... (what's the word?)...logical. And, that's the way I've looked at it in the past. Not much question how the average IRS auditor would view this either and C. Frog correctly observed that if commuting mileage on the back of a 4562 is less than a round trip to the office times 365 (or whatever), then the figures are implicitly absurd.

Still, Bees tells us that since the tax laws are more or less nonsensical (who can argue with that?), it doesn't have to add up to be deductible. I wanted to draw him out a little more, but I think he's said his piece and just feels we're free to use it or not, so I'll stop picking at it.

It was a fascinating concept that he laid out -- deducting the whole trip because of temp location and job-to-job. Can you imagine the coup if you could pull it off -- ambushing a haughty, clueless agent with something from IRS's own pub? No doubt the comeback would be your position above, but I'll bet it's almost never argued (anybody here ever heard it used before?).

I wonder if you'd prevail if you stuck the pub under the nose of an agent or the supervisor and argued this "illogical" argument?