New Vehicle - Question from Tom's Tax Webinar

[tn0087]

Hey Tom (or anyone else who attended),
In the webinar for the 2018 tax changes (thanks again for doing that) I believe you mentioned that even when taking the standard mileage deduction you can still claim the business portion of the loan interest and vehicle property tax you paid for a new car purchase. We did purchase a new vehicle that is used time/space with the daycare. Should I claim these as deductions in my schedule C or is there somewhere in specific I need to claim this related to my vehicle deduction? Since I'm using standard mileage rate, I can't really itemize the vehicle expenses.

Thanks!
Tim

[tn0087]

I forgot to add, can we deduct the T/S% of the down payment that we made as an expense as well?

[TomCopeland]

car expenses

Hey Tom (or anyone else who attended),
In the webinar for the 2018 tax changes (thanks again for doing that) I believe you mentioned that even when taking the standard mileage deduction you can still claim the business portion of the loan interest and vehicle property tax you paid for a new car purchase. We did purchase a new vehicle that is used time/space with the daycare. Should I claim these as deductions in my schedule C or is there somewhere in specific I need to claim this related to my vehicle deduction? Since I'm using standard mileage rate, I can't really itemize the vehicle expenses.

Thanks!
Tim

You can never use your time-space % to claim any portion of your car expenses. Time-Space % has to do with the use of your home, not your car. You are correct that when using the standard mileage method to claim car expenses you can use the standard mileage rate of $.545 for 2018, plus parking, tolls, and the business portion of car loan interest and vehicle property tax (if your state charges this). That's it. To determine the business portion of car loan interest and vehicle property tax, divide the business miles you drove by the total number of miles you drove. So, if you drove 2000 business miles and 10000 total miles, you can deduct 20% of your car loan interest and vehicle property tax.