I live in the country, so any store I go to, is at least 9 miles, so most of my round trips are averaging 20 miles. For some of the items, the gas mileage reimbursement is more than the value of the item, can the IRS hold that againist me an drefuse to give deductions based on where I live?

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Certainly hope not. My store is almost 30 miles and almost 60 round-trip!

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I was wondering this too! I try to combine trips whenever possible, but when I was doing a lot of purchasing to start up last summer I did a LOT of traveling-everything here is 15-25 miles away. Hope it doesn't red flag it for the IRS. I *think* I have all the records that I need, but still...

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I think it may be a bit debatable since living so far out was a personal choice.

It is an interesting topic, I live WAY out in the woods, and am curious, too, now.

I have never really deducted mileage since I have to go out anyway..unless it was for something special/necessary for the daycare. (I usually just have things shipped in, instead)

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Is there some IRS rule that says they are more likely to deny deductions if family child care providers live in rural areas and must travel further to purchase business stuff? No.

If you do live in a rural area it's quite likely that your mileage deduction will be a lot higher than other providers. As a general rule, the higher your business deduction for mileage (or any other expense) the more careful you should be about keeping good records.

You should never be deducting 100% of your trips to stores that you buy both business and personal stuff. Deduct some of these trips - those that are "primarily" for business purposes.


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Tom, this is confusing, and here is why. Now keep in mind, that in my town that the Super Walmart is the closest store, and where we get 99% of our household, groceries, clothes &DC stuff. One stop shopping. Since I live farther out (not as far as others though!)I tend to not make as many trips, but if I went out to buy clorox wipes and paper towels because I am out and need them for tomorrow, I would call that a business trip. However, since I am already out and sinced I am at the store, I see some personal things I can use to save me a trip in a few days, or something is on sale, so I buy them. So you are saying if this is the case, I could not claim the trip as buisness because I bought personal items too? Or it ok to do it, but not all the time? Make the trips even?

Now on the other token, if I go out to do personal shopping, and see stuff I could use for the daycare on sale, etc, I will buy those too but I would not claim the trip as business, so in my mind, I am basing the reason for the trip as to weather or not I claim it, so am I wrong in that thinking?

Now what if I go out for personal shopping, and they are having a huhe baby sale, and I end up buying more baby stuff than personal stuff, even though my sole reason for going out was for family stuff...Would I claim that as business?

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I would measure whether or not a trip was primarily business or not based on whether you bought more business or personal stuff. Just don't claim all trips as business. So, you may have started out thinking the trip was business or personal but instead look at the purchases. More business - claim it.

In your case since it would be rare that you would go out and only buy business stuff or only buy personal stuff - claim some of the trips.


Join me this coming Monday for my webinar "How to Reduce Your Taxes for 2010 and 2011" sponsored by daycare.com. For more info: https://www.daycare.com/news/taxes/t...d-webinar.html

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