Tax Season 2024: Key dates and tips for a smooth filing experience
While the IRS hasn’t set the start date for tax returns, it’s likely to be late January, following recent trends.
One of fast tax tip to review before filing your 2024 federal income tax return is the IRS mileage rate.
It’s a much-talked-about deduction, but it’s also a tax break that stalls out for plenty of drivers.
Several years ago, many people could claim an itemized deduction for unreimbursed employee travel expenses. Now, though, if you work for a company who doesn’t reimburse your mileage for travel, you’re out of luck. The change in the tax rule is part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.
However, a self-employed taxpayer who files a Schedule C can use the standard rate to deduct expenses from mileage incurred while doing business. You can only use one method — the standard mileage rate or the business portion of actual expenses — for the same vehicle.
The 2024 standard mileage rate for business use of a vehicle is 67 cents a mile.
The mileage rate is useful to know at tax time for those traveling for volunteer work and others.
The 2024 mileage rate for use of your vehicle to do volunteer work for certain charitable organizations is 14 cents a mile. To claim that deduction, you must itemize your deductions, and not take the standard deduction, as the majority of taxpayers now do. This would be for unreimbursed expenses.
About 90% of taxpayers claim the standard deduction now and do not itemize deductions.
If you itemize, see Schedule A under the charitable deductions section.
A key point from the IRS: “The IRS will not allow deductions for volunteer travel unless there isno significant element of personal pleasure, recreation or vacation in such travel.”
The 2024 rate for operating expenses for a car when you use it for medical reasons is 21 cents a mile. The same rate of 21 cents per mile applies for specific moving purposes for qualified active-duty members of the Armed Forces.
The IRS notes that under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act taxpayers cannot claim a deduction for moving expenses, unless they are members of the Armed Forces on active duty moving under orders to a permanent change of station.
Contact personal finance columnist Susan Tompor: stompor@freepress.com. Follow her on X @tompor.
