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Hokey pete, I need to go work on mine! I'm really slack about deducting my mileage, but if it adds up that fast I need to get on it.
For real! I have never done it either. All I did was take my receipts and add in where they were from, and used Google Maps to get the mileage. Easy Peasy. I even watched a horrible movie while I was doing it. Anybody ever see "Burn After Reading"? Horrible, horrible movie. There was no message, or point or moral or plot, or anything. And everybody was having an affair. YUCK!
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FFS! Can we talk about taxes as they pertain to business? I don't think Enga is actually suggesting people try not to pay their taxes, because even though it may be "technically" voluntary, she knows the IRS will "LITERALLY" lock your ass up after they take everything you own, if you don't. Congress is a buch of power hungry, greedy shysters.
Can we get back on the proper subject??
As far as mileage goes, I just started entering it into my expenses on cakeboss like this
Walmart-9.8
$5.49
Mileage (category)
5/22/13
The $5.49 refers to the $.56 the IRS lets you deduct per mile. Walmart is 4.9 miles from my door, so multiply it times 2, and multiply that times .56 It is 5.488, and you round to the nearest cent. My bookkeeper told me to that today, so far I am up to $411.56 and I only got through July, so I recommend keeping track!
Thank you Anna, my comment was to you the OP, I ran across this a while back and just wanted to share it with CC. I pay my taxes. The sentence did start off as"you want to hear something that will bend your noodle........" It is just information to think about.
I was thinking about purchasing Cake Boss but from reviews that I have read I want something like QB to grow with my business. There are ones out there that a more geared toward the baking industry but they are so expensive. It would be nice if someone could combine the two and make it more affordable.
Sorry for going so far off topic as it was not my intention to do so.
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FFS! Can we talk about taxes as they pertain to business? I don't think Enga is actually suggesting people try not to pay their taxes, because even though it may be "technically" voluntary, she knows the IRS will "LITERALLY" lock your ass up after they take everything you own, if you don't. Congress is a buch of power hungry, greedy shysters.
Can we get back on the proper subject??
As far as mileage goes, I just started entering it into my expenses on cakeboss like this
Walmart-9.8
$5.49
Mileage (category)
5/22/13
The $5.49 refers to the $.56 the IRS lets you deduct per mile. Walmart is 4.9 miles from my door, so multiply it times 2, and multiply that times .56 It is 5.488, and you round to the nearest cent. My bookkeeper told me to that today, so far I am up to $411.56 and I only got through July, so I recommend keeping track!
You don't need to calculate the mileage expense ($5.49) for every individual trip (unelss you're doing this for specific software purposes). You would just input actual mileage and at the end of the year you add up the total miles, then multiply by the standard mileage rate and round up. Much less work this way.
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100% agree with Jason. The information you are just "passing along" is promoting tax evasion and could land people in jail. Income tax is not voluntary. This is not a matter of opinion. It is fact.
http://www.irs.gov/Tax-Professionals/The-Truth-About-Frivolous-Tax-Arguments-Introduction
You can agree with whom ever you choose to agree with I don't care. I'm not telling anyone to not pay their taxes. I'm just giving information and they can decide to believe it or not. You can fight it, even though it is an tumultuous battle it can be argued in a court of law.
I don't want to derail Anna's thread. People can take this information with a grain of salt as with any information on the internet.
If you and Jason want to argue lets take it somewhere else.
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Original message sent by sixinarow
Question -- what if you're going to the grocery store to buy groceries for your family AND cake supplies. Do you still get to claim the full mileage amount?
As long as there was a business purpose for the trip the full mileage should be deductible. However I would err on the side of not deducting the trip if the main purpose was grocery shopping for personal use and you just happened to pick up a few business items.
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As long as there was a business purpose for the trip the full mileage should be deductible. However I would err on the side of not deducting the trip if the main purpose was grocery shopping for personal use and you just happened to pick up a few business items.
I believe this could go either way and I would tend the take the business mileage either way and fight it, if it was ever questioned.
Say you were getting all of your supplies in order to make a big wedding cake and you realized you didn't have enough nuts, food coloring and butter, so you go to the grocery store. This is a mandatory business trip because you can't make the cake without the supplies but since you have to go anyway, you shop for your family as well. Regardless of whether you spend $10 for business and $100 for personal groceries on the same trip, this is a deductible business trip.
The IRS alway looks at intent of the individual during an audit. If you can prove your intentions were good or have a reasonable basis, they will allow the deduction. So again, the key is to take good notes, keep an appointment calendar, document details on receipts and/or your mileage log and you're good to go. The fact of the matter is that for every business owner that claims false deductions, there is at least one that is so afraid of being audited they don't claim things they are entitled to deduct.
P.S. Mimifix, I think Enga was saying that if Jason and I wanted to continue to argue with HER...not that we were arguing with each other. 
A
Original message sent by PumpkinTart
Say you were getting all of your supplies in order to make a big wedding cake and you realized you didn't have enough nuts, food coloring and butter, so you go to the grocery store. This is a mandatory business trip because you can't make the cake without the supplies but since you have to go anyway, you shop for your family as well. Regardless of whether you spend $10 for business and $100 for personal groceries on the same trip, this is a deductible business trip.
True, the key is whether or not you actually needed to pick something up for the business for that trip. I was thinking more along the lines of being careful not to turn regular personal grocery shopping trips into "business" trips by just picking up an extra bag of sugar for the business. Similar to how dining out with friends could turn into a deductible "business meal" by just saying "business is doing great", to me that's fudging.
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I believe this could go either way and I would tend the take the business mileage either way and fight it, if it was ever questioned.
Say you were getting all of your supplies in order to make a big wedding cake and you realized you didn't have enough nuts, food coloring and butter, so you go to the grocery store. This is a mandatory business trip because you can't make the cake without the supplies but since you have to go anyway, you shop for your family as well. Regardless of whether you spend $10 for business and $100 for personal groceries on the same trip, this is a deductible business trip.
The IRS alway looks at intent of the individual during an audit. If you can prove your intentions were good or have a reasonable basis, they will allow the deduction. So again, the key is to take good notes, keep an appointment calendar, document details on receipts and/or your mileage log and you're good to go. The fact of the matter is that for every business owner that claims false deductions, there is at least one that is so afraid of being audited they don't claim things they are entitled to deduct.
P.S. Mimifix, I think Enga was saying that if Jason and I wanted to continue to argue with HER...not that we were arguing with each other.
That is how our shopping goes. I am a SAHM as well as cake decorator and my husbands works outside the home, so he will grab things from the store on the way home form work. Typically, I will text him and ask him to get a gallon of milk and some chocolate chips for my baking, and he will text back "do we need anything else?" and I say, "well, I suppose we do need to eat tonight ;-)" and then the personal shopping is sorted out.
I did the mileage the way I did because of the way the software is set up. There is no way to total the mileage unless you put it in the cost part, which will completely mess up the totals. I made it easier by adding all the places I go to a cheat sheet. After I entered the first "Sam's Club - 10.5" all I had to do was type the "Sa" and it popped up, then my little cheat sheet says how much the trip costs.
Sure would be nice to have all that pop up automatically, which is an endorsement for an excel worksheet, but the templates are so hard to figure out! KellyM??
Seriously? lol! After i get done doing the mileage my way, I log in 15 minutes ago to CakeBoss Cloud and there is a mileage log... Thanks Kelly and husband ;-)
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Seriously? lol! After i get done doing the mileage my way, I log in 15 minutes ago to CakeBoss Cloud and there is a mileage log... Thanks Kelly and husband ;-)
YAY! They took my request seriously! Or if a few of us sent in a suggestion they took it seriously! What an awesome business!
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