Can I deduct mileage and PC purchases from tax?

Factual Questions
1

Hopefully simple questions regarding Canadian tax laws: I hope to soon purchase a new laptop and/or PC (on which I admit much surfing and gaming will occur) that at some point will be used for researching various programming languages, and probably compile some code for work. This seems to make it qualify for “tax depreciation” according to this site, something which I don’t really understand. What does this mean?

Perhaps more easily, while I did tool around today looking for a place to buy/rent, my car more usually ends up travelling 64km/day to and from work, costing me about 150$/mo. Can this figure in any way in to my taxes?

My usual involvement in taxes involves me overseeing the installation of QuickTax by my former banker/bankruptcy agent father (who I’ve already asked w/o result), so if you can avoid words like “remuneration” and “dividend”, that’d be nice. Feel free to use “null pointer exception”, “ACID transaction” or “IP masquerading” though.
And if you wanna post U.S. specific info, go ahead - I’m sure someone will find it useful.

Oh, note I will be accepting replies from only government accredited tax experts, and shall apply all suggestions without checking, so make sure they’re right or I’ll sue. :stuck_out_tongue:

2

I don’t know about Canada, but in the states, I belive that you are not allowed to deduct the milage for your drive TO and FROM work, only mileage that is specifically FOR work. As for the computer, I’m going to guess no, you can’t. I’m probably compleatly wrong on this, and again this his how I think it is over here, but I don’t think you could deduct your computer unless you are self employed.

3

Thanks Joey P - it seemed unlikely that the government would be willing to give me anything, but it’s fun to imagine. :slight_smile:

I found out that the only way I could deduct the cost of a new PC would be if my employer confirmed that it was required for work. I forget where I read it, but the example was that if you have a laptop for home data entry for your convenience, it’s not covered. If your employer required that you have one for said data entry, it would be.