The mileage deduction and mileage logs in the United States

There is no federal requirement to reimburse business driving in your own car; the entitlement comes from your employer’s policy or your employment agreement. A handful of states, California among them, do require an employer to cover necessary business expenses.

If nothing is reimbursed, most employees currently have no deduction to fall back on either, because the itemized deduction for employee business expenses is suspended. A few groups are exceptions, among them Armed Forces reservists, qualified performing artists and fee-basis state or local officials.

An accountable plan. The driving has to be for business, each trip has to be substantiated, and anything paid above the substantiated amount has to be returned. Reimbursed that way, and at no more than the standard mileage rate, the payment is not wages and does not land on your W-2.

Without substantiation, or as a flat car allowance that is not tied to actual miles, the same money is treated as taxable pay. The record that keeps it out of your wages is exactly what MoveJack keeps: date, addresses, distance and purpose per trip.

Driving between home and your regular place of work is a personal commute and does not count as business mileage, however far it is. Driving on to a client, or between two work locations, usually does.

Because the two are treated so differently, MoveJack separates commute from business from the first trip rather than at the end of the year.

Yes. You either deduct a flat amount per business mile or work out the actual cost of running the vehicle — gas, maintenance, insurance, depreciation. Either way the deduction goes on Schedule C.

If you want to keep the choice open, take the standard mileage rate in the first year the car is used for business; a leased car has to stay on whichever method you started with for the whole lease. Which one comes out ahead depends on your miles and your running costs, so it is worth checking both with your tax preparer.

Trips made for the business: to clients, suppliers, jobs, training or a professional appointment. Driving from home to a regular office is a commute, not business.

Personal trips stay out of the deduction but should remain visible, which is why every trip carries its own type.

At least as long as the period of limitations on the return they support, which is normally three years from the date you filed. Some situations run longer, and records for a vehicle you depreciate are worth keeping until you have disposed of it. An annual export to Excel or PDF covers it.

Since MoveJack keeps your trips only on your phone, that export is also your backup.

Per trip: the date, the mileage, where you went and the business purpose — the IRS expects a record of exactly that. Noting the odometer reading at the start and end of the year makes the total verifiable.

MoveJack captures the time, the addresses and the distance automatically; you add the business purpose, which no device can know.

Gaps, round numbers that repeat, missing business purposes, and figures that were clearly written up months afterwards. A spreadsheet anyone can edit later is the weakest form, and a total estimated after the fact is the easiest to set aside.

A record kept at or near the time of each trip carries far more weight. If the record goes, the deduction or the tax-free reimbursement behind it goes with it.

An app can meet the requirements because it records contemporaneously and completely. Whether your particular record is accepted is decided by the review of your own case, not by the supplier — so we do not claim otherwise.

What we do promise: the trip is captured in full, it stays on your device, and you can export it whenever you want.