Business mileage

[outwest]

And now we are finally..

getting back to the point I was trying to make with the lawn mowing. It seemed we were getting to the conclusion mileage required a temporary work location, going the the post office on a regular basis for more that a year meant it wasn't temporary therefore you can't deduct mileage to pick up the mail. Or travel to one lawn mowing site to another as a extension of that example.

Now we've cleared up that with " Getting from one workplace to another in the course of your business when traveling within your tax home. "

Whew! But this has been a great CPE refresher on this whole issue. Can anyone mail me a certificate for 1 hour?

[Bees Knees]

I will state it once more...there is no justification to say that only the extra miles driven during a commute to stop at the post office are deductible. There is no rule that says that.

Rev Rul 99-7 only allows three scenarios:

1) Travel out of town miles.
2) Travel to a temporary work location IF there is a main place of work.
3) Job to job miles.

You have to fit into one of these three. There is no such thing as an extra mileage factor. Driving to the post office and back from your office is job to job miles.

For you musicians without a home office, you can't deduct mileage to your gigs unless you have a regular place of work and these gigs are temporary work locations, or your gigs are out of town. Being self employed does not turn commuting miles into business miles. Self employed taxpayers follow the same rules as employees when it comes to business miles.

[Davc]

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.

Next time you see a go cart count the wheels.

[joanmcq]

If you don't have a home office, then you can't claim mileage for gigs, whatever unless out of town. Out of town is a 50 mile radius. Same for lawnmower. The lawn guys first trip is commuting, to second client is biz, etc, last client to home is commuting. Home office changes all of that. However, a band is unlikely to have a home office. I've researched that one extensively, and unless out of town, mileage is not deductible.

Biz owner with an out of home office. Commute to office nondeductible. however, you stop at the post office on the way to work. Home to post office becomes commute, Post office to office is biz. If you do this every day, there had better be a good business reason for stopping at the post office though.