Commuting vs personal miles - why does Turbotax even ask?

[h9fam]

I'm self-employed and use my vehicle partly for business use, partly personal. I've been doing this for years and am well-versed in what qualifies as business use. Until recently I didn't have "commuting" miles because I had no regular workplace I commuted to. Now I DO have a commute to a workplace... BUT, what's the point in keeping track of my commuting miles, since tax-wise they are identical to personal miles? Is there any downside to just entering tracking my qualified work miles, and treating everything else as personal miles, including my commute? (In other words, I enter my beginning and ending odomoter readings for the year, enter # of miles I tracked for work, and enter 0 for commuting.) Just want to know if there is any reason to go to the trouble to start tracking my commuting miles. 

[AliciaP1]

Commuting miles, for a home-office-based self-employed person, are the first trip away from home and the last trip back and these are not deductible as business miles.  So, you should have been deducting commuting miles for your business trips that started from your home office.  The box for Commuting Miles in TurboTax is basically a reminder for this rule and it is not actually reported anywhere.  Now that you are actually "commuting", you do not need to report or track them, just continue not claiming them as business miles.