I am self-employed and enter business vehicle mileage on Schedule C. In previous years I've always just entered totals for work vs personal mileage as just one "generic" or "merged" vehicle in Turbotax, because I had been tracking mileage but not which vehicle I used for which trip. Since all I had was counts of business vs personal mileage, but no record of how much of each kind of mileage applied to which vehicle, it all just blended together on my tax return. The date I "placed the vehicle into service" is just a generic date from before I owned either vehicle. I've even had vehicles I've used for a mix of work and personal use that I've sold in past years but never entered that info into Turbotax, because the vehicle was not its own distinct entity to begin with on my taxes. So from year to year I've just had overall totals of work vs personal mileage that were agnostic to which vehicles I used for how much of it, or whether the vehicles I used in a given year were the same as in previous years.
Starting last year (1/1/2019) I began tracking mileage in more detail, so for 2019 I now know how much mileage applies to which vehicle, of which I have two. Both are used for both business and personal mileage. Two questions:
1. Is there a benefit to me going in and separating these two vehicles into their own entities in Turbotax this year? Or should I just as well keep them merged/generic as it has been in previous years?
2. If I should separate them, how should I go about this? Here's my guess but tell me if I'm wrong: Maybe tell Turbotax that I took the generic/merged vehicle "out of service" on 1/1/2019. It asks if I sold the vehicle and I say no. It then eventually asks what I paid for the vehicle to start with. Maybe here I just add together the purchase price of the two vehicles (even though I bought them at different times from each other)? Then I go in and add two new vehicles, indicate that I placed them both in service on 1/1/2019, and proceed to enter the distinct mileage info for each one? Any other caveats or nuances?
