Vehicle deduction is not calculating correctly

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
January 31, 2021
2 replies
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My vehicle expenses appear to be malfunctioning on the site. First of all, when it showed me what I had last year, everything was blank, and it is blank every time I go to make changes. That is obviously indicative of some larger problem.

I just enter mileage without itemizing, and I have some interest on the vehicle. My mileage was 8863 for 2020, which should work out to a 5,096 mileage deduction, and my interest in 2020 was 914, which should work out to roughly a $540 deduction ($914 x (8863/15000)). My total mileage for the year is about 15K, but I haven't checked that precisely yet. Thus, my total deduction for the vehicle should be roughly $5636 vs. the $1149 it is currently showing. Any idea what could be causing this problem? I am pretty sure everything else is entered correctly. Again, I have to re-enter everything when I go to make changes, which I know is not how that form is supposed to behave. I saw that some similar bugs were recently resolved, but my guess is other things got broken in the meantime.

TurboTax Self Employed Online

Best answer by DawnC

In TurboTax Online, when you are entering your vehicle mileage in the self-employed section, the program is not allowing standard mileage rate. We are currently working on this issue. Please sign-up here and we will email you the latest updates.

It is not allowing the standard mileage rate right now. It is giving you actual mileage which is showing depreciation and note interest only. Leave the correct mileage in there and when it is fixed, go back through the entries then.

MaryM428

Level 11

When you take the deduction for interest, you lose the deduction for standard mileage rate. You can either claim the milage deduction or you can itemize the expenses for the vehicle which is the only way to claim the interest.

To get your best result, take the standard mileage reate as it will give you a much higher deduction than taking the interest.

jjwoldAuthor

Level 2

Portion of vehicle interest used for business is indeed a deduction you can claim in addition to the mileage rate. I just checked IRS guidelines again, Turbotax's guidelines, H&R Block's guidelines, and they all verify that. I've taken that deduction every year since I've had a car loan. I have since entered more precise information for my mileage (I made some corrections and vastly underestimated how many personal miles I drove), and it calculated my vehicle interest deduction at $303 (which would be correct - $913.90*(9036/27235)), and an additional $1149 for the mileage deduction - which obviously doesn't correspond to either 9036*57.5 cents or the other possibility I thought of - incorrect calculation of the mileage rate times the amount used for business. That also does not match up to what works out to 12.7 cents per each of 9036 miles. Clearly there is a bug.

AmyC

Level 15

Technical is working on it. Since the IRS does not open until February 12, you may enjoy some light reading to help with your business, see Sharing Economy Tax Center or catch some videos at IRS Video Portal.

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