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Sarah is an Enrolled Agent with the IRS and a former staff writer at Keeper. In 2022, she was named one of CPA Practice Advisor’s 20 Under 40 Top Influencers in the field of accounting. Her work has been featured in Business Insider, Money Under 30, Best Life, GOBankingRates, and Shopify. Sarah has spent nearly a decade in public accounting and has extensive experience offering strategic tax planning at the state and federal level. Her clients have come from a wide range of industries, including oil and gas, manufacturing, real estate, wholesale and retail, finance, and ecommerce, and she has handled tax returns for C corps, S corps, partnerships, nonprofits, and sole proprietorships. In her spare time, she is a devoted cat mom and enjoys hiking, painting, and overwatering her houseplants.
August 2, 2024 January 2, 2024 Reviewed by Reviewed by
Sarah is an Enrolled Agent with the IRS and a former staff writer at Keeper. In 2022, she was named one of CPA Practice Advisor’s 20 Under 40 Top Influencers in the field of accounting. Her work has been featured in Business Insider, Money Under 30, Best Life, GOBankingRates, and Shopify. Sarah has spent nearly a decade in public accounting and has extensive experience offering strategic tax planning at the state and federal level. Her clients have come from a wide range of industries, including oil and gas, manufacturing, real estate, wholesale and retail, finance, and ecommerce, and she has handled tax returns for C corps, S corps, partnerships, nonprofits, and sole proprietorships. In her spare time, she is a devoted cat mom and enjoys hiking, painting, and overwatering her houseplants.
August 2, 2024 January 2, 2024 Reviewed by Reviewed byLooking for a painless way to track your business mileage? The search ends here. I’d like to introduce you to the last mileage logs you’ll ever need, updated with the latest IRS rates.
Here's one for the 2023 tax year:
To use these spreadsheets, click on the links below and select “Make a copy” to make it your own.
This free mileage log template tracks your trips and automatically calculates your mileage deduction on each one.
It’s user-friendly, compliant with IRS standards, and quite pretty to look at. All in all, it’s a perfect solution for your own taxes — or for requesting a mileage reimbursement from a customer or employer.
The bottom half of the log gives you plenty of room to record all your trip information. There are a few sample lines to show you how it works. Let’s take a look at each column, one at a time:
As you begin to fill out the log, your Dashboard will automatically update.
The total tax deduction for the year will show up in the green box shown below. We calculate this automatically for you, using the latest mileage rate provided by the IRS.
Your cumulative business and total mileage will display as well.
If you prefer to use your odometer readings for your total miles, you can include those in the top right corner of the Dashboard. The “Total Mileage” box will update accordingly. (We’ll talk some more about odometer readings down below!)
If your mileage deduction is ever challenged, this is what the IRS is going to expect to see included on your log:
If you fail to adequately supply any of these things, your tax deduction would be disallowed. That’s why we made sure to include all of those on the Keeper log.
A common misconception is that the IRS requires your odometer readings on the log. That’s not true. As long as you’re able to document the other details, you don’t need to consult your odometer at all.
However, when it comes to claiming your mileage deduction on your tax return, your odometer can come in handy.
When to use your odometer readings
Your odometer can be helpful for figuring out your total mileage.
Let’s back up a second. When reporting your auto details, you’ll have to list two things:
Most people know to track their business mileage, but not everyone tracks their total mileage.
If you use the Keeper mileage log for both your work and personal trips, the total mileage listed at the top should be accurate.
However, what if you only track your business trips? Then you should record your odometer miles at the beginning and end of the year to get your total mileage.
Just put in your starting and ending odometer readings, and the Dashboard will do the rest.
Our free spreadsheet is a great way to track your mileage deduction, but how does it actually work? The mileage deduction is calculated by multiplying your yearly business miles by the IRS’s standard mileage rate. For 2023, that’s $0.655. For 2024, it'll be $0.67.
This rate is adjusted for inflation each year. It’s designed to reflect the average costs of car-related expenses, such as:
So if you have 5,000 in business mileage, your deduction would be $2,925. Not bad, right?
This is a great deduction to take advantage of if you drive for work. However, it does come with the added recordkeeping requirement of a mileage log.
Over the years, many taxpayers have gotten dinged for claiming the mileage deduction without good records.
Here are a couple of tax court cases that show what can happen.
⚖️ Taylor v. Commissioner: A few bad trips can put your whole write-off at risk
In the case of Taylor v. Commissioner in 2017, a small business owner’s mileage deduction was disallowed due to discrepancies on her log. Certain trips listed inaccurate mileage or showed distances that would be too long to complete in a single day.
Interestingly, Mrs. Taylor’s entire mileage deduction was disallowed, even though much of her documentation was up to the IRS’s standards. Having several major mistakes cost her the entire write-off.
⚖️ Kilpatrick v. Commissioner: There’s no point in creating a mileage log after the fact
In another case, Kilpatrick v. Commissioner, a business owner waited until after he received notice of an IRS audit to create his mileage log.
Mr. Kilpatrick was able to provide calendar records and MapQuest printouts of his routes. However, the tax court deemed his records inadequate since they were prepared more than two years after the driving had occurred.
Sadly, this has been the fate of many taxpayers over the years. The IRS is strict about requiring contemporaneous records, which means they are kept in real time.
Recreating your log after the fact could jeopardize your write-off.
Sarah is an Enrolled Agent with the IRS and a former staff writer at Keeper. In 2022, she was named one of CPA Practice Advisor’s 20 Under 40 Top Influencers in the field of accounting. Her work has been featured in Business Insider, Money Under 30, Best Life, GOBankingRates, and Shopify. Sarah has spent nearly a decade in public accounting and has extensive experience offering strategic tax planning at the state and federal level. Her clients have come from a wide range of industries, including oil and gas, manufacturing, real estate, wholesale and retail, finance, and ecommerce, and she has handled tax returns for C corps, S corps, partnerships, nonprofits, and sole proprietorships. In her spare time, she is a devoted cat mom and enjoys hiking, painting, and overwatering her houseplants.
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