Tax-Smart Driving: Shield Your Vehicle from IRS Audits!

If you’re a business owner, did you know that you have to protect your car from the Government?

What do I mean?

If you are going to use your vehicle and claim business usage (using the mileage deduction or the “actual expense” method) you must protect your claim or create an audit shield for protection.

There are several ways you can do this.

1. Adapt a SYSTEM and adhere to it for tracking your vehicle usage for business purposes.
2. At the beginning of the year take a snapshot of your odometer and take another snapshot of your odometer at the end of the year. Or get an oil change at the beginning and end of year with the paperwork showing your mileage.

**Make Taxes Fair Pro Tip**

A pro tip is to pull out your favorite digital device (probably your phone) and do the following… right now… 

• Put a pop up reminder in your calendar or in your favorite reminder app for a BOY (Beginning of Year) and EOY (End of Year) to-do.
• Your to-do’s should be:

• Take a picture of your odometer and/or

• Get an oil change and scan the document showing your milage on your vehicle.

• Then put a weekly reminder in your calendar or reminder app to sit down and pull together your mileage report for the week. 

Tackling these things a little chunk at a time during the year will put you on course to optimize your taxes and achieve tax savings!

It’s not just bad drivers that target your vehicle on the road (we all know who they are… those people who don’t believe in changing their blinker fluid!!!!)

Nope, the government has its sights on your vehicle. 

Vehicle deductions are one of the favorite things to target in IRS audits. 

Why?

Because business owners lack a system to properly track claim this and many other deductions and the IRS knows it.

If you are audited, the IRS will NOT accept rough estimates of your mileage. 

Historically, they have let business owners “recreate” a log as long as it’s based on contemporaneous documents. 

For example, taking your appointment calendar and re-creating a mileage log from that.

But honestly, who has time for that? I know that sounds like a drudgery zone task for sure to me.

And, even worse, the IRS is on a hiring frenzy and tax professionals exiting audits with clients are reporting that these new agents are being even more “by the book” by requiring a receipt for every transaction, etc.

So, in order to protect yourself with documentation that will stand up to an audit, you really should choose the optimal route of a mapping software such as Mile IQ or any number of other apps that have been designed specifically for capturing business miles.

A “audit proof” log should include:

• Date of the trip
• Miles driven
• Where you went
• Purpose of the trip
• With whom you met

This information is needed regardless of whether you claim miles driven for business or the “actual expenses” method.

Grabbing the photos of your odometer or oil change records showing the total BOY and EOY miles will only further solidify your position in defending your vehicle usage.

And keep in mind, it is the rare exception when absolutely 100% of a vehicle's usage is totally business use.

There will almost always be some personal usage mixed into the miles driven and reflecting this on the tax returns is both realistic and will show that you’re not trying to abuse the system.

The old adage that “pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered” applies to many things in life and tax savings is no exception.

All of that being said, nailing down your vehicle usage is easier than you think and really less of a daunting task than one would imagine.

And it’s made even easier when you have a SYSTEM!

The government has a system to take your money! And they are ruthlessly after your hard earned profits.

 Fight back with a system of your own.

 At MakeTaxesFair.com we help you by showing you a SYSTEM to fight back, reclaim your freedom from oppressive taxes, and save money using the mileage deduction and many other strategies.

The reason why you are wasting money on taxes is because you lack a system that provides you with:

EDUCATION to learn what you can be doing,

EVALUATION tools to see how that education applies to you,

EXECUTION tools to put all of that into action!

All leading to EFFICIENCY in your tax situation to ultimately keep more of your hard earned profits in your home and bank account.

 Join the fight and start your tax savings now at www.MakeTaxesFair.com/system