Claiming mileage

[hzo71380]

Can I claim mileage

[Hal_Al]

You can usually claim a mileage deduction for the production of income. But there are limitations. The most common is that you may not deduct mileage just for commuting to work, whether you are a wage earner or self employed.
There are also deductions for medical miles and charitable miles.

To get a more specific answer, you'll need to provide more details bout the mileage you want to claim.

[hzo71380]

I work in telecom. Cell towers to be more specific. I drive my personal vehicle site to site, state to state. I've been from the upper peninsula, to Texas. I put about 33000 miles on my car last year. Can I claim this?

[Hal_Al]

Simple answer: yes, that is deductible mileage to do your job or business.

How you claim it depends on whether you are self employed or a W-2 employee. If you are self employed it will come up in the business portion of the Turbotax (TT)  Interview.

Either way, you cannot use the free edition of TT. 

For an employee, you are allowed to deduct your mileage (54 cents for 2016) and other job expenses, subtracting what you were reimbursed (do not subtract your reimbursement if it was included on your W-2 as taxable income). TurboTax completes form  2106, which  then carries to Misc itemized deductions on Schedule A. The problem with this is that you only get to deduct that portion of  your misc deductions that exceed 2% of your AGI. and then only if your total  itemized deductions exceed the standard deduction.  (2% rule explained: https://ttlc.intuit.com/questions/2902781-what-is-the-2-rule)

  In TurboTax, enter at:

Federal Taxes Tab

Deductions & Credits

I'll choose what I work on

-Scroll down to:

-Employment Expenses
-- Job related expenses