Sold personal vehicle used partially for business mileage

[oliviasb]

I've been reading a lot of other posts and turb tax responses -- thought I was getting somewhere with understanding, and have hit a wall. 

Please help. I bought the car from the dealership in October 2016 with only roughly 2k miles on it, and the total miles on the date of sale 11/16/25 was 137,302. 

In late 2023 I started a yoga business as a sole proprietor. On my 2023 taxes I listed my 2015 Honda Accord Coupe as the vehicle I used occasionally for business, but is mainly for personal use. 

2023 - Claimed 357 business miles

2024 - Claimed 6,813 business miles

2025 - Claiming 5,765 business miles

= 12,935 business miles for all years / 137,302 total miles for all years = 9.56% overall business use percentage for life of the vehicle. Correct?

I sold the vehicle to a private buyer for $2,000 on 11/16/25

Per other question responses, my understanding is that I need to select "Sold, disposed of etc." but then mark the box that says "Converted to 100% personal use". Then shift over to Other Business Situations tab to report the sale. I've done that... but am completely lost and confused at what comes next. 

When I get to the page of Other Business Situations, it says:

Enter the following information for this property sale. If you used the property partly for personal purposes, be sure to compute the amounts of your sales and the property's cost that relate to the business portion only. 

Description: 2015 Honda Accord Coupe

Date Acquired: 10/15/2016

Date Sold: 11/16/2025

Total Sales Price: Would be 9.56% x $2,000 = $191.20

Cost of Property (or Tax Basis) Plus Expenses Sale: ????

Depreciation Taken on This Property: ????

I have no idea how to figure the info for the last two boxes. 😕 Do I need to know the original purchase price of my car in 2016?? 

Thanks in advance 🙂

[KrisD15]

You need to determine an "Adjusted Basis" first. 

Your Adjusted Basis would be the Fair Market Value of the vehicle when you started using it for business in 2023, less depreciation. 

If you used the Standard Mileage Rate, "Depreciation Equivalent" is built in by mile:

2023 ..... 28 cents

2024 ..... 30 cents

2025 ..... 33 cents

Take the miles for each year and multiply by this rate 

2023 = 99.96           (357x.28)

2024 = 2,043.90     (6813x.30)

2025 = 1,902.45     (5765x.33)

Depreciation Equivalent = 4,046.31

Adjusted Basis is the 2023 Fair Market Value minus 4,046.31

I don't know the fair Market Value of the car in 2023,  as an example lets say 10,000.

Adjusted basis is 5,953.69 (10,000 - 4,046.31)

You sold for 2,000 so that would be a loss. 2,046.31 loss. 

If you converted to personal use, the loss can't be claimed.

If it was sold while active as a business vehicle, you could claim part of the loss as a business loss, and that would be where the percentage of business use would come in. 

The loss you could claim on an active business vehicle that was used 10% business would be (in this example) 204.63

If you sold it for 15,000, you would have 4,046.31 "Depreciation Recapture" and 5,000 Capital Gain.

This happens often when selling rental property (Houses), not so often with vehicles.

The business percentage is the percentage of miles starting when the vehicle was placed into service (2023) NOT from when you purchased the vehicle (2016) 

Cost of Property (or Tax Basis) Plus Expenses Sale: ????

2023 Fair Market Value plus any commission paid to salesperson

It is the value you entered for the property when you listed the property as a "Business Asset" 

Depreciation Taken on This Property: ????

The Depreciation Equivalent as discussed 

[AmeliesUncle]

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@oliviasb wrote:

Total Sales Price: Would be 9.56% x $2,000 = $191.20

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You have a taxable gain of $191.

Based on your other information, the Basis of the business portion of your vehicle is $0, so the entire business portion of the sales price is taxable.

Unfortunately, the last I checked TurboTax is NOT set up to report the sale of an asset (including a vehicle) whose business percentage has varied from year to year.   If you try to enter it in the vehicle section it gives an incorrect result, and if you enter the manually calculated numbers in the "Sale of Business Property" section it incorrectly does not affect some calculations for the business.