@CG2
I'm responding to several statements you made in both of the threads that you started.
"Yes, I'm self-employed. I didn't realize there was a separate forum for that."
It's not a separate forum, but when you posted your questions you were asked to indicate what TurboTax product you are using. You didn't do that. xmasbaby0 was looking for the product indicator as a clue to whether you are self-employed. You did not initially say that you are self-employed in either of your two questions. If you had indicated that you were using TurboTax Self-Employed or TurboTax Home & Business that would have been a clue.
"I'm trying to deduct my car as a business expense but I didn't keep a record of my mileage."
Obviously in order to deduct expenses you have to have records of the expenses. There are two ways to deduct vehicle expenses, the standard mileage rate or actual expenses. In order to use the standard mileage rate you obviously have to have a record of your mileage. To use actual expenses you have to have records of all your car expenses: gas, maintenance, repairs, insurance, etc. And if the car is not used exclusively for business, you also need a log of business vs. personal mileage so that you can determine the percentage of business use.
"I'm not new to [self-employment]. However the laws do keep changing"
The laws about deducting business expenses, including car expenses, haven't changed significantly in years. If you're not new to self-employment, how have you deducted your expenses in previous years?
"my refund goes down with the amount of business expenses I enter"
That suggests that you are getting a credit that is affected by the amount of your income, such as the Earned Income Credit. Lower income, because of additional expenses, can reduce the amount of the credit that you are entitled to. That makes it even more important to report all your expenses accurately.
You should probably go to a local tax professional for help straightening out your tax return. The tax pro can also advise you about proper record keeping for your business.
As you can see, when information about one tax situation is scattered in multiple threads it's confusing and hard to follow, and hard to see the whole picture. If you have any further questions, please pick one of your two threads to continue the discussion, and post only to that one thread.
