Logs for business vs personal

[jyeh74]

Why does TT ask you these two questions for vehicle expense?

Did you keep a log for business use?

yes

no

Did you keep a log for personal use?

yes

no

The next screen asks you to list the total miles driven for the year and how much was driven for business?  Regardless on how you answer the above two questions for the standard mileage deduction, you can infer what the mileage is.  Let’s say total driven is 10,000 miles and 6,000 was for business use.  Then you can calculate that 10,000 - 6,000 = 4,000 was for personal use.  Follow my logic?  

So the two questions don’t really matter since they ask for mileage anyways.

[LeticiaF1]

The reason why TurboTax asks for that information is because the IRS asks for it.  The program will need to ask all the necessary questions to complete the IRS forms.  If you see the image below, it is from Schedule C which is the form most single business owners use to report their income, you can see that the form requires all of that information.   

[jyeh74]

@LeticiaF1 but whether someone answers yes + yes versus yes + no versus no + yes, it will still take you to the next screen where you have to enter 1) total mileage for the entire year 2) total mileage dedicated for business use.  So that means the form will still show 10,000 total miles out of which = 6,000 miles for business