TeresaM
Expert Alumni

Deductions & credits

As a business owner or self-employed individual, you can enter either the standard mileage rate or the actual cost method, which tracks what you paid for gas and maintenance.

To use the standard mileage rate, you must keep a log of each trip with miles driven during the first year your vehicle is used for business. After that, you can either go with standard mileage or actual cost (unless you lease, in which case you must stick with standard mileage for the duration of the lease).

To enter vehicle related expenses

In the Self-Employed Turbo Tax version with the Federal Taxes tab

Click on the Federal Taxes tab

Click on Income and Expenses

You may see a prompt for Self-Employment, but if not

Click on Check for More Income and See All Income

Scroll down to the Self-Employment section with the blue person icon

Click on Show More

And Start or Edit

Scroll down past Expenses line and click on the blue

Add More Expenses for this work button

Click on the circle for Vehicle Expenses

Click on Continue at the bottom

The vehicle expenses have a series of questions and you can choose to use either a cost per mile or use the actual costs for the vehicle (including gas) and the next page has tolls and parking.

There are more expense categories on the Add Expenses page if you

click on the blue triangle next to Less Common Expenses

for legal and professional fees, commissions and much more.

  

In the Self-Employed Turbo Tax version with the Business tab

Click on the Business tab

Then Continue and I'll choose what to work on

Update your Profit or Loss from a Business

Click on the Edit button for the name of your business

Under Business Expenses, with the blue bar graph icon,

click on Update or Start for Business Vehicle Expense

click here for more tax tips for drivers

 


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