Business driving is a real deduction that people routinely give up, either by not tracking it or by tracking it in a way that will not hold up. The rules are simple once you know them.
What counts and what does not
Driving for business, to clients, job sites, the bank, to pick up supplies, is deductible. Your regular commute from home to a fixed workplace is not, which is the distinction people most often get wrong.
If you work from a qualifying home office, more of your driving can count as business rather than commuting, another reason the home office and the mileage deduction often go together.
A log the IRS accepts
A valid mileage log records the date, the destination, the business purpose, and the miles for each trip. A year-end guess of "about 8,000 miles" is exactly what gets disallowed.
A mileage app that logs trips automatically from your phone turns this from a chore into something you never think about, and it produces the contemporaneous record the IRS wants to see.
Standard rate vs. actual costs
Most people use the standard mileage rate: total business miles times a set per-mile amount. It is simple and requires only the log, no fuel or repair receipts.
The actual-expense method deducts the business percentage of real vehicle costs and can be worth more for expensive vehicles, but it demands far more record-keeping. For most, the standard rate wins on simplicity.
- →Business trips deduct; your normal commute does not.
- →Log date, destination, purpose, and miles for every trip.
- →The standard mileage rate is simplest and enough for most.