USA Calculating Mileage For Business Versus Personal

[mentaldetective]

Hi, I own my own business and I had some questions regarding calculating mileage for business versus personal.

1, Say for instance I use my car to do something business related but I take a small detour to grab dinner. Would I subtract the amount of mileage on the detour for dinner from the total mileage I drove that day? How would I record that into my bookkeeping?

2. Say I took a long trip out of town to visit a family member, while I was there I decided to go to a office store or some place work related to pick up something business related. Could I calculate the whole trip as business mileage?

3. Say for instance my business has something to do with carpentry, and there was a carpentry museum I wanted to visit to research ideas for my business. Could I write off the cost of the museum and the mileage I drove to get there and back? What if i really enjoyed the museum too and even met friends and family there? Would that be considered more of a personal expense?

Thank you for your help in advance, I am new to all this and want to make sure I am doing everything by the book.

 

[Samir]

1. Yes. It would be reflected in the vehicle log book (which you better have if you're expensing mileage).

2. No. Your trip was primarily personal.

3. Thin line. If you primarily were there for business, I would expense most of it, but take off for what you think was only personal time.

My advice is to not try to expense mileage. Instead, expense the fuel and maintenance on the vehicle. You may not be able to expense as much, but you don't have to worry about all the regulations required for a mileage audit. (I had the same decision in front of me a few years ago and ditched the idea of expensing mileage after learning how much record-keeping is involved.)

 

[mentaldetective]

Thank you for your help Samir!

 

[Samir]

You're welcome!