I've got 3 rentals myself, and in the past discovered that claiming vehicle use was an absolute and total waste of my time. It made no difference to my tax liability. Not one single penny. That's because even without claiming vehicle use, rental property always operates at a loss on paper, at tax time. Since claming vehicle use on my rentals each year doesn't make a penny of difference to my tax liability, why bother?
If I aggregate miles across all three rentals on one rental business use miles exceeds the 50% business use requirement to qualify for special depreciation,
It still will not make one penny of difference in your tax liability. All you're doing is increasing the paperwork you have to do, and getting nothing in return.
Most folks don't realize that a part of that "per-mile" deduction you get each year is depreciation. Then when you sell, trade-in or otherwise dispose of the vehicle later, you have to recapture all that depreciation. To top it off, since the per-mile deduction changes every year, so does the amount of each mile change that is depreciation. So it's a paperwork nightmare to track, and even more so when you dispose of the vehicle.... and you're doing it all for no gain what-so-ever.
