A Better Way to Track Business Mileage – Will Meet IRS Guidelines

24 Jan 2023 A Better Way to Track Business Mileage – Will Meet IRS Guidelines

Authored by Haynie & Company Partner Hal Rosen, CPA

About MileIQ

For taxpayers that use vehicles in their business, a major headache is tracking mileage used for business vs. personal purposes. I have tried Apps that one must manually start and stop to record business miles. The problem with these types of Apps is that we usually forget to start the App at least 30% of the time. The advantage of MileIQ is that it starts whenever your car rolls. While it may miss the first two to three-tenths of a mile to ensure that the vehicle is underway on a trip, I found this to be less of a discrepancy than forgetting to record business trips.

How The App Works

The App not only records your mileage traveled, but it also makes it easy to designate business miles (swipe right) and personal miles (swipe left) on your smartphone. By partially swiping right or left, you are able to record general classifications for business miles such as meetings, customer visits, meals, travel to and from the airport, etc. For personal miles, one can record commutes, medical, charity, etc. The App will also show recordings of your start and finish locations on a map for your phone and for the webpage. In case of an audit, you can access the recordings by viewing the history.

In addition, you can choose to auto-classify frequent drives, such as commutes from home to the office and back home again or trips between offices or a supply store.

Meet IRS Guidelines

In my experience, having used this App for over a decade, I have found that it is simple to use and has helped me justify my business miles with the detailed records it provides. Your accountant will be thrilled when you provide the details that the IRS rules require for claiming business miles! I’ve represented clients in IRS audits. For those without records of their travels, it is a losing proposition. Sometimes we can obtain a partial deduction, but we spend a lot of time researching history. A partial hour of IRS representation time more than pays for the annual cost of the App. With this discount code, HROS612A, you can save 20% on your annual subscription.

Here’s a guide on how to redeem a promo code in the MileIQ support center. Download the App to get started today.

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