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Yes, I would agree with your scenario and would include miles between fares as related to business, and my statement in that case was too general. However, I would not include miles for the driver going back home between fares as business-related mileage because that would be commuting.

I disagree that "Basically, only miles driven while a customer is in the car is the deductible portion." I believe the mileage from the time they drop off their last fare to where they pick up their next fare would be deductible as long as they were "working" (signed onto the app and not going home between fares). I have a couple of Uber drivers and they also told me that the mileage reported by Uber does not include the mileage when driving from one fare to pick up another so I have them using one the phone tracking apps to make sure they capture all their miles..

Great news! Rich

Well-prepared clients are a joy!

You prepared tax returns for the deceased right? Then the attorney steps in for $30k to prepare the estate work, right? Prepare the return correctly. Let him explain to the Bene's why they have to pay tax, because he distributed the $$ to soon. ANd did not retain an amount to pay the taxes. And yes, the Bene's are at a probably lower tax bracket. Rich

I'm going to be installing a medium-sized forum update in the next few minutes, as soon as my backup has completed. There are lots of new features, but most of them aren't relevant to our community. Emojis will be added, lots of them. They are the standard emojis you are used to seeing on mobile devices. I've installed a security certificate and the whole site will default to https. I'll be implementing Google's newish invisible Captcha service as an additional layer of protection against spammers. It works by magic. Unless something goes horrifically wrong, there shouldn't be more than a few minutes downtime. Thanks!

There are NO SNOWFLAKES on this discussion board!!

Thank you, Eric, for taking such good care of us!

Eric...thanks very much. Appreciate you continuing to make our community better! <~~ This is a good one

I see you did it while causing the minimum amount of loren ipsum dolor. Thanks, Eric.

The survey was done by MIT and is highly questionable. They revised their results twice because their methodology was faulty. The average went from $3.35/h to $8.85/h to $10/h. The drivers that are losing money are doing it part time, or are students and most likely working at the least profitable times of the day when the rates are at their lowest. These drivers drop out of it within a few months. If this holds to Pareto's Law, approx. 20% of the drivers will produce 80% of the revenue. It is the same in other fields, sales, inventory, sports. There has been some mention of the driver being declared employees. So far, all the court tests, one federal and several states, have shot it down. Even CA has tried but the state seems to have backed off. Uber's HQ is in SF, so there could be political pressure being applied.

Many thanks for your continual efforts keeping everything up to date.

There are so many easy telephone aps now, mileage is easy to keep. And with Uber, you check in to work, check out when off. They clock your miles for you. Oh well, worse overstatements have happened, I'm sure. The driver who LOST money every single year in my office was a courier. He picked up medical items from one place to another and literally drove all day. Reduced by commuting miles, they still lost money. But hey, he was retired and he enjoyed "working" at something, whatever the cost. He used his beater car for this gig and enjoyed it.

Done! Edit: Almost done. I have a few more things to take care of before those last two bullet points are finished. Testing emojis. Modifying style sheets to increase their size a bit. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Aenean aliquam in dolor vitae condimentum. Nullam tincidunt mauris eu congue ornare. Integer sit amet diam nunc. Vivamus vestibulum aliquam neque ac congue. Proin et nibh vitae risus faucibus viverra rutrum id arcu. Phasellus vulputate sem vehicula nisi ullamcorper lacinia. Pellentesque vehicula scelerisque est et sollicitudin. Cras viverra, dui et tristique blandit, quam urna scelerisque lacus, nec semper sem massa quis odio. Nulla vulputate ut ligula at aliquet. In congue mi purus, a molestie tortor congue eu. In mattis gravida egestas. Aenean pharetra pretium hendrerit. Edit2: Alright, seriously this time, all done.

I once prepared a tax return for a OTR trucker, was home 2-3 times a month for a few days and back to driving, gross income was about +200K, actual expensive were like +150K a year. I had to ask him if all this driving was worth it, being away from his family and only pocketing 1/4 of his earnings.

No I did not ask this, and don't think it is fair. Many of you will respond "Fair does not matter in tax law" but there logistically is no commuting other than the mileage to the first pickup and mileage home from the last pickup. Only those few miles would qualify as commuting under the "business stop rule". And if the driver does three pickups in a night, and comes home between pickups, then those commuting miles would be multiplied by three. Had I asked this, I don't know that any of those drivers would keep mileage records to that extent. All of them have other jobs and I'm sure they regard their "tax home" as being their residence for purposes of a 2nd job. In a town the size of Nashville it would be typical to drive 3-4 miles to the first ride, drive 1 mile, and then 3-4 miles home. My portrayal here is not strained at all, but really quite typical. In such a case only 10% of his total mileage would be deductible. I don't think the IRS is being ripped off under this scenario. It is the driver that is being ripped off. Interesting to hear from some of the rest of you - your drivers are making money. Judy, thanks for your response. Adds spice to the conversation.

And, for those who want to know, if someone pukes in an Uber, they are hit with a $200 fine immediately, before they sober up! I didn't learn that by accident... my client told me.