1 vehicle, multiple businesses

[buckley]

I'm having a hard time finding this answer...

I'm a Real Estate agent (Schedule C), and also own 3 rental properties (Schedule E) plus a beach vacation rental about 2 hours away from home. 

80% of the miles on my care are directly for these businesses... with about 50% directly associated with my Real Estate business.

In the past, I entered my car for each Schedule E and logged the miles that way, but when I went to sell the car it was a nightmare trying to update all of these in TurboTax and I found errors.

Can I just lump all 80% of the miles driven onto my Schedule C and make a note in my file that the miles driven for the Schedule E's were deducted from the other business?  Or do I really need to create a car for every single property and do that nightmare again?

OR, can I log the miles accurately for the Real Estate business and then just make a 'mileage deduction" line on the Schedule E without writing off the vehicle itself?

[AliciaP1]

Yes, you can put your mileage as used for business in your Schedule C.  you do not have to allocate it out, but if you choose to spread the miles to the Schedule E properties, you will need to reduce the mileage claim on Schedule C by those miles.

For instance, if you drove 1,000 miles total in the car and report 80% to Schedule C only you would report 800 miles.  If you choose to allocate 100 miles to Property 1, 100 miles to Property 2, and 100 miles to Property 3, you would then only report 500 miles to Schedule C.