Thanks.
So are you saying if I take the standard mileage deduction then I don't have to manually enter details about the asset on the car and truck worksheet? And I don't need a 4562 on the new used car we bought?
I reported the disposition on the old car, but whether I did it correctly is a different story. How can I tell if I did? The old car was a clunker given to my son from a family member. I claimed the mileage deduction for him the years he used it, and when the car was on it's last leg he had it towed to the dealer he was using and they took it off his hands. The dealership didn't buy it from him, they basically took it off his hands and did who knows what with it. The car was 17 years old anyway so I didn't care. We later discovered the dealer had to fudge the numbers on the purchase order in order to justify our negotiated price. They wrote that they gave a $1000 credit for the old car, but they never agreed to that in person. Plus, if you took that $1000 credit away and added it back onto the car's price, the car's total price would be higher than their original asking price. While we were negotiating, I couldn't even get them to give us $50 for the trade in because they said it was too old, too broken, and too much trouble. But they did agree to dispose of it if we bought a car from them. I just reported it was sold for 0.
If I need to tie it to the $1000 credit, I'm going to need some guidance. Over the years, my son made money in two businesses with this car and we made a Sch C for both businesses and deducted the appropriate mileage for each one. If I have to report the disposal of the old car for both Sch C's, how would I handle the $1000 credit? If I enter the same car info on both business returns, it will show a $1000 profit two times. Would I split the cost between both or enter the full amount on one and zero on the other?
Since the very beginning, I've never entered any details about vehicles outside of step by step interview screens. I have also never used anything other than the standard mileage deduction. We've always had used cars, never new. Given this history, can you tell me if there's anything I'd need to open the form and enter manually on either of the worksheets for the old car and the new used car? When I was trying everything I could think of to force form 4562 to be included in the return for the new vehicle, I came across a bunch of questions on the worksheet about topics I don't understand. I read the instructions and interpreted them as best I could, but I really just think they confused me more. Questions about MACRS, depreciation, AMT, and others that I've never had to deal with before. Even the worksheet for the old car had errors on it I had to fix manually, all relating to depreciation. If all I need to do when taking the standard mileage is to walk through the screens and enter the numbers and dates they ask for, then I will delete everything and start over. The old car will be harder because data was transferred from past years.
