It's an strange
situation but very common. The miles you drive or the expenses you pay Uber for your job and related expenses do qualify. Unfortunately, there can be any
number of reasons why it doesn't show up on your Schedule A (Itemized
Deductions) or affect your bottom line.
One common reason is
that your total itemized deductions (Property Tax, Mortgage Interest,
Charitable Donations and State Income Tax) don't add up to more than the
standard deduction for your filing status. Such itemized deductions are not
added on to a standard deduction, but used instead. The IRS doesn't let you use
both.
TurboTax figures the
deduction that's best for you. More info about your situation would be needed
to tell you the actual reason.
You can see the
different standard deductions below depending on your filing status.
Example about taking mileage for work, but you can substitute your Uber fees:
Simply using 10,000
miles at the standard mileage rate of .54/miles (2016) would equal a $5,400
deduction. Unfortunately, you must reduce this (combined with other employment
expenses such as cell phone, office supplies, etc.) by 2% of your AGI (Line 37,
1040). With a $50,000 income, you would have to take $1,000 (50,000 x 2%) off
of the $5,400, leaving you with $4,400 This can seriously reduce your deduction
depending on your AGI.
In this example, you
would be better off with a $6,300 standard deduction (Single), than $4,400
itemized deduction. Understand that there are more itemized deductions that
you're allowed, but this is a simple example showing how sometimes it doesn't
help.
Here are the
standard deduction amounts for 2016. (Your itemized deductions need to exceed
this number in order for them to help you and trigger a Schedule A on your
return.)
Filing Status
Standard Deduction
Single
$6,300
Married Filing
Jointly $12,600
Married Filing
Separately $6,300
Head of Household
$9,300
Qualifying Widow(er)
$12,600
This may help you in determining what's deductible mileage (whether you drive or take Uber):
- Your trip between your home
and your regular or main job is never deductible.
- A trip between your home and
temporary work location is deductible if your main job is at another
location.
- Your commute between home and
second job is never deductible on a day off from your main job.
- Your trip between your
regular job and temporary job is always deductible.
- Your trips between your main
and second job are deductible.
- Your trips between temporary
work locations and a second job.
