Expenses and Deductions - delivery driver

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
January 31, 2021
3 replies
29 views

what expenses can be deducted on top of the standard mileage deduction?

both phone and car are used for both business and personal.

can one deduct cellphone payments? what about oil changes?

AnnetteB6

Employee Tax Expert

As a self-employed delivery driver you can claim expenses related to your personal car and personal phone if they are used for business purposes as well.

If you are using the standard mileage deduction for your vehicle business expenses, then you cannot include the cost of oil changes in addition to the standard mileage. The standard mileage rate is set to take your maintenance cost into account. If you were using the actual expense method for the vehicle expenses, then your oil change costs would be included as part of the actual expense.

For your personal cell phone, you need to determine how much the phone is used personally versus for business purposes. Then, you can deduct the business portion of the cell phone bill as an expense. For example, if you use the phone 25% of the time for business purposes, then you could deduct 25% of the bill as a business expense.

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Anonymous

How would one accurately calculate such percentage?

The cellphone bill is a fixed subscription rate for unlimited usage, meaning it's the same regardless of whether it's also used for business.

cellphone was also lightly used during some months and much heavily used during other months.

PattiF

Alumni - Intuit

You can take an average to come up with a percentage for the year. If you are driving a lot and sleeping 8 hours a day, your percentage would be close to 50%. If you are not driving a lot, the percentage would be 25% or so. You could determine an average for the year. If you were driving a lot for 6 months and less for six months, then the percentage would be approximately 35%. A reasonable estimate is acceptable.

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