Do any of you rent cars regularly for day routes?

The tax savings can seem like a benefit, but you are actually paying the cost with wear and tear on your vehicle. I think of the extra use as a "loan" that will have to be paid back with added maintenance and eventually purchasing another vehicle.

The net cost comes down to the value/durability of your primary vehicle and the rates that you are able to get on rentals.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/20/2020 06:57PM by 1cent.

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@1cent wrote:

The tax savings can seem like a benefit, but you are actually paying the cost with wear and tear on your vehicle. I think of the extra use as a "loan" that will have to be paid back with added maintenance and eventually purchasing another vehicle.

Absolutely. And that bill comes due unexpectedly sometimes. Miles aren't free even if you own the car. Your costs are more than just gas.

@JustForFun wrote:

@1cent wrote:

The tax savings can seem like a benefit, but you are actually paying the cost with wear and tear on your vehicle. I think of the extra use as a "loan" that will have to be paid back with added maintenance and eventually purchasing another vehicle.

Absolutely. And that bill comes due unexpectedly sometimes. Miles aren't free even if you own the car. Your costs are more than just gas.

The mileage deduction is a representation of the average cost of maintenance to expect on a car. Many vehicles may indeed cost in terms of both labor and materials, more than this mileage rate... I get that.

Shopping the Greater Denver Area, Colorado Springs and in-between in Colorado. 33 year old male and willing to travel!

Another auto rental site - Autoslash. After you make your reservation Autoslash continues to monitor price and lets you know if they go down. No deposit, no cancellation penalty. I have used it several times.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/20/2020 06:37PM by callinectes.

@Tarantado wrote:

@SoCalMama wrote:

I checked today. Right now, it's about $10 cheaper than Costco, but I won't get airline miles. Still, I'll keep checking for a bigger discount. Oh, it's cheaper for an off-brand, not a major brand. Alamo is cheaper through Costco right now.

Hahaha you definitely seem like a customer that doesn’t have patience using off-site rental companies!

So from my Oahu trip a couple weeks ago now, I decided to save $30 to grit my teeth and work with one of those smaller companies. Customer service and wait was absolutely terrible, but they upgraded me to a longer sedan and I ended using that $30 I saved choosing them on some rounds of Taro cocktails! Taro drink, coconut liqueur and rum!

I need to save more than $10 to skip out on my airline miles. I will keep checking. I'd actually like to rent the BMW 3 series. It's cute and fast. The model that I own in $80 a day. LOL. I'm not paying that much to rent the car I actually drive. What fun is that?

Tarantado, (I now call you baboso in my head), I haven't paid for a drink since 1999.

@1cent wrote:

The tax savings can seem like a benefit, but you are actually paying the cost with wear and tear on your vehicle.

I am paying the cost of the wear and tear on my vehicle AND it's a tax benefit both. The problem comes in when people don't account for it. My vehicle costs me about $.22 to drive. That's replacement cost (wear and tear), gas, and maintenance. Conservatively my tax benefit is about $.30 per mile driven. At, again a conservative figure, 25% tax rate every single mile I drive my vehicle for work is $.075. I drove my personal vehicle about 40,000 miles last year. That's a profit, in the form of a lower tax bill, of $3000.

There are reasons that a body stays in motion
At the moment only demons come to mind

Hubby's 24/7/365 job involves approximately 20,000 deductible miles per year. We now have a vehicle that gets great gas mileage. This is the perfect combination. I am still figuring out whether I could use repairs and other deductions and file separately (and get the best tax outcome for my work). Heigh ho, heigh ho, it's back to the calculator I go...

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished. - Lao-Tzu

@SoCalMama wrote:

I need to save more than $10 to skip out on my airline miles. I will keep checking. I'd actually like to rent the BMW 3 series. It's cute and fast. The model that I own in $80 a day. LOL. I'm not paying that much to rent the car I actually drive. What fun is that?

You need to rent from National as an elite on the weekend. Business travelers typically come into town on Monday and snap them up but they're back on the lot by Friday.

I think that you are saying that you both use a single car and that you want to use actual expenses for your shops while your husband uses the standard mileage rate for his work-related miles. That will not get past the IRS. If you have 2 vehicles, you can use a different method for each vehicle.

@Shop-et-al wrote:

Hubby's 24/7/365 job involves approximately 20,000 deductible miles per year. We now have a vehicle that gets great gas mileage. This is the perfect combination. I am still figuring out whether I could use repairs and other deductions and file separately (and get the best tax outcome for my work). Heigh ho, heigh ho, it's back to the calculator I go...

Shopping Southeast Pennsylvania, Delaware above the canal, and South Jersey since 2008

@myst4au wrote:

I think that you are saying that you both use a single car and that you want to use actual expenses for your shops while your husband uses the standard mileage rate for his work-related miles. That will not get past the IRS. If you have 2 vehicles, you can use a different method for each vehicle.
@Shop-et-al wrote:

Hubby's 24/7/365 job involves approximately 20,000 deductible miles per year. We now have a vehicle that gets great gas mileage. This is the perfect combination. I am still figuring out whether I could use repairs and other deductions and file separately (and get the best tax outcome for my work). Heigh ho, heigh ho, it's back to the calculator I go...

I didn’t read it that way. The way I read it is that can she deduct beyond the flat-rate mileage off. The short answer is no. She is correct that she can deduct based off of actual expenses and adjusted towards mileage for work / mileage overall. BUT you have to pick one (IRS Mileage Rate) or the other (Actual Expenses).

Shopping the Greater Denver Area, Colorado Springs and in-between in Colorado. 33 year old male and willing to travel!

At 20,000 miles you would have to incur about $11,000 in actual expenses just to come out even......

There are reasons that a body stays in motion
At the moment only demons come to mind

For last year, we used three vehicles. We can file separate C forms and we can report our portions of work mileage for each vehicle. We do not have equal outcomes at tax time.

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished. - Lao-Tzu

I have done this multiple times. I have AAA premier for roadside assistance, and using this membership at Hertz gives me a very competitive price. My local Hertz store knows me so well that because of my Hertz gold membership and my AAA premier membership, they have given me Jaguars and Lincoln's for a subcompact price. And I'm earning Hertz gold points at the same time. And, BTW, the Hertz gold points add up faster than I ever thought.

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