Preschool and Mileage

[emosks]

Can I claim mileage to/from preschools for drop offs/pick ups?

My only thought for no is that my daughter goes to one of the schools that another DCG goes to. So I'm transporting both of them.

[TomCopeland]

You can only claim a trip as a business trip if the "primary" purpose of the trip is business. If you are transporting your own child and a day care child to preschool and you would be going there even if the day care child was not present, then it's not primarily a business trip.

[estrella]

This is different from the original person who asked the question, but also a mileage question - I do grocery run every week. But sometimes I do pick up my own stuff on separate receipt. Someone told me that I should only count half the mileage. But according to "need to go?" basis, it's a bit confusing... I wouldn't go as often as every week if I didn't have to go there for daycare, and I don't always pick up my own grocery, it's just solely for daycare grocery trip (but I didn't mark those dates specifically since this is my first year doing daycare, didn't know I had to be so detailed on that for mileage) - and also, if I didn't run daycare, I would just be asking my husband to pick up groceries on the way back from work instead of making this weekly trips to grocery market myself.

So I feel like I am going there for business primarily, but at the same time one can argue that I am also going for my own personal shopping, too, so which one would be better?

[TomCopeland]

First of all - never claim half the mileage of a trip. That would mean that you never came back! You are in the situation that most providers find themselves. Don't claim every trip to the grocery store as a business trip. This is because the IRS will say that you must have some personal trips to buy food. You can think of it this way - if you normally went to the grocery store once every two weeks, but now go every week after your business began, then claim every other trip as a business trip. Another way to look at it - what percentage of the total food that you buy at the grocery store is business? If it's 70%, then claim 70% of your trips as business trips.
Lastly, look at it this way - for each trip, determine if you are buying more business food than personal food. If so, count it as a business trip. However, even though you might always be buying more business food than personal food, you can't count every trip as business, so you may want to adjust downward the number of your business trips.