Kytann

Occasionally I use my truck for work. Delivering panels to customers, or picking up supplies. For example, just yesterday we rented a trailer, and filled the truck and trailer up with remodeling supplies for remodeling our business.

However it is a privately owned truck.

Earlier this year I bought a topper for my truck. This topper has come in useful for work for the reasons listed above, it's also been useful for home use.

Since I do use my truck for work occasionally, can I deduct the topper from my taxes?

I can say my work use definitely factored into my purchase decision of the topper.

little nail

The usual way of compensating for use of your truck is to pay you mileage for the distance traveled delivering supplies. When I had to do it, compensation was about 50 cents a mile.

Ricktwuhk

No. Well at least not easily.

Here's an IRS page that broadly covers it with further references. In short, you have a personal asset (truck) for which you bought a piece of equipment (topper) that you wish to get the business to pay for a portion of. Either you take the mileage rate as a business expense for business usage, or you convert the asset (truck) to business usage and then add the equipment (topper) to it and depreciate it. Given your occasional use, you can't really say the truck is business equipment, so just charging mileage is the best way to go. The mileage rate changes every year, currently $.56 per mile. Make sure you keep complete records showing date, miles driven, purpose. For occasional use, setup a separate Google calendar and type the info in each day that you use it.

http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc510.html

Kytann

Yeah I've been doing the mileage deduction for years. I'm well versed in the limitations of that.

I was just hoping I could deduct even a portion of the cost of the topper on my taxes.
Since, you know, the mileage deduction is exactly the same with and without that extra piece of equipment.

What I'm hoping is if I have documentation showing I make deliveries with the truck a few times a year I can show a business use for the topper (lock valuables inside and keep the weather off of sensitive electronic equipment), and make that an expense.

But you're saying for a piece of equipment I would have to already use the truck 50% or greater for business? That doesn't sound right.
For example: If I buy an external hard drive for my work laptop, I can deduct the external hard drive, without having to prove the laptop it's attached to is owned by the business.

But I've never deducted vehicle parts before, so I'm in new ground.

Ricktwuhk

You can do anything you want to. Whether you can defend it or not is another story.

External hard drives can be hooked up to any computer. You said you use it for business, you're all set. You buy an internal hard drive for a business computer, you're all set, because you already have the business computer for business use.

The camper top is attached to your personal vehicle. It has no other use. If your personal vehicle is used nearly all the time for personal use, then you can't attach something to it and say that something has 100% business usage, or even more business usage than your overall truck does, right?

Let's say you did the math of total usage of your vehicle a year. What's that - 3%? 10%? So, even if you could deduct the top, it would be that 3 or 10% only anyway.

Let's see if a tax expert pipes up, but I believe my understanding is correct. If you convert from mileage to % of use and do all expenses of the vehicle that way you might be able to take a different approach, but then you'd likely find that you end up worse off because mileage is so much more generous than % of use for light use.

Adam013085

^that's how it was explained to me when my wife started her business and travels occasionally.

RLXXI

When I had to buy tools or equipment for work I always deducted every single item, every wrench, plier, leak detector, etc. When I ran my home business every item for use was deducted, every ink cartridge, printer, computer, pens, paper, etc.

I had H&R Block do my taxes for me because I had to also intermingle all that with my mortgage interest, medical, etc for my family and my home, the business part they asked how I wanted to go about it and I decided to use a 5 year depreciation deduction, don't ask me how that works because that is what Block did and why I paid them to do my taxes. Utilizing one room of my home including a bathroom would also allow for a % of my total utility bills.

With that said I would take it up with a tax pro like I did because they found deductions I didn't know I was entitled to which by the way is another deduction the following year for tax prep costs.


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grio19

It's your personal vehicle. They will give you the mileage for the wear and tear of the vehicle while you use it for business use, but they wont help you pay for the shell.

Wannafbody

The best thing would be to consult an accountant. There are a couple different ways you can do things.

btexan

H&r hosed you with the home office deduction. You just setup a huge tax liability when/if you ever sell your home because part of it is a capital asset which selling your home later will cause that percentage to be subject to capital gains taxes vs a full deferral of taxes. Plus home offices raises audit red flags. If you are only using your truck a few times a year for delivering product, it sounds like this might not be a full time business as compared to a "hobby" business. Another audit flag for home offices.

Take the standard milage deduction and contract with a professional tax person. You don't need your tax guy setting you up for a big surprise