Archive for March, 2011

 

Business expenses come with the territory when you are an entrepreneur. Some expenses, however, can be easy to miss come tax time because they do not show up in your business checkbook. Use of your car for driving to client meetings, the office supply store, the post office and more are deductible expenses because you are using your vehicle for business purposes.

Here are a few tips from the National Association for the Self-Employed (NASE) to remember in regard to deducting expenses for business use of your automobile:

• The Standard Mileage Rate is 50 cents per mile driven for business in 2010.
• If you would rather calculate by hand, use the Actual Expense Method. Manually calculate costs of maintaining and driving the car as a percentage of total miles driven for business.
• Calculate both to see which gets you the better deduction.

“The main thing the IRS will want to see in supporting this deduction is your mileage log.” says NASE National Tax Advisor Keith Hall. “You must keep track of the miles you drive for business, whether it’s on your computer or handwritten in a notebook.”

The NASE iPhone application TripAlly tracks, calculates and records miles driven to create the ultimate tax-deduction mileage log. Whether you need to track miles for your small business, charitable contributions, for employee reimbursement, or simply because you want to know, TripAlly can help. Download TripAlly at the iTunes App Store.

 Click here for more details on TripAlly.

About the NASE

The National Association for the Self-Employed (NASE) is the nation’s leading resource for the self-employed and micro-businesses, bringing a broad range of benefits to help entrepreneurs succeed and to drive the continued growth of this vital segment of the American economy. The NASE is a 501(c) (6) nonprofit organization and provides big-business advantages to hundreds of thousands of micro-businesses across the United States. For more information, visit the association’s Web site at www.NASE.org.