So, I’ve got a legit deduction here - vehicle mileage for my now-dead Jetta that I drove into the ground for work.
…anyways, my documentation of this is non-existant. I could backtrack through paperwork at the office, but even then it would be some pretty spotty.
If I freely admit on my Form 2106 Line 20 “Do you have evidence to support your deduction” that the answer is ‘no’, how big an audit flag is this? The rest of my return is squeaky-clean, and I’m not lying on this mileage. If anything, I’ve estimated low.
It’s a difference on my refund of about $600 - it’s not insignificant, but it’s also not worth waving a placard emblazoned with “AUDIT ME!”.
I can’t answer your question as to how big a flag it is, but I note the question doesnt’ ask if you have complete evidence, so the question is unclear and it seems to me you could naswer the question with a ‘yes’ if you hav epartial evidence.
That is true and that is what I would do personally. The level of detail you need to go into there is up for debate. Some people simply estimate mileage by multiplying round trip estimated miles and number of days worked and that is usually good enough. Other people keep daily logs. You could argue that the best thing would to have a GPS that plots your routes for the whole year and then subtracts out any personal driving. That would a little silly although you can see there isn’t a clear line.
The IRS isn’t bad about auditing individuals these days like they once were. Even if you did get audited, you still should be able to show that you had a job where driving is necessary. Once you get to that point, you are just arguing about the number of miles and an amount that is trivial to them compared to the cost of reclaiming it.
Just a reminder… if you got reimbursed for that mileage, and it was in line with the official IRS rates, you do not get to take the deduction… Car allowances work differently.
IANATL/A (tax lawyer/accountant), but I did once get to take the mileage deduction.
Since I’ve already submitted it, it’s too late to worry about it now. I went ahead and took the mileage and (like a good boy) reported my vehicle allowance as a reimbursement.
So, we’ll see what happens. I may be cursing the people in this thread sometime in the near future.
A related question: someone told me that I could deduct my driving to school. Since I went to school thrice a week, and the round-trip distance was 100 miles, that could end up being significant. However, I had no idea that this was a possible deduction. Where would I find out more about taking this deduction?
That’s a hell of a lot of miles, or you make next to nothing, because you remembered to count those business expenses only beyond 2% of your gross income, right? If the refund is $600, based on (what? 40.5¢?) per mile and your net taxes are (say) 10%, then that’s like almost 15,000 miles of unreimbursed driving.
If he’s claiming the deduction on a schedule C, then it does not have to exceed 2% of his income – the only restrictions are on how losses on a schedule C can be reported over a period of years.
