Stan's Blog

Miles and miles and miles

I can see for miles and miles
I can see for miles and miles
I can see for miles and miles and miles and miles and miles
Oh yeah

- Lyrics from I Can See for Miles by The Who

Saturday morning and I'm sitting here doing a little prep work for my 2008 tax return. My first task was to calculate all of the mileage that might qualify for a deduction, such as mileage related to medical purposes, charitable service mileage or un-reimbursed work mileage.

The amount of miles I drove for work purposes last year was so astonishing I had to take a blog break. So forgive me if these numbers bore you, but I found it somewhat amazing.

I drove more than 11,600 miles last year in which I claimed reimbursement from my employer. There were another 200 or so work miles in which I did not claim reimbursement at all.

My employer reimburses mileage at 40 cents per mile, whereas the standard IRS rate for business mileage was 50.5 cents through June 30 and 58.5 cents from July 1 on.

So if you calculate the difference between what I was reimbursed and what the federal government allows, I missed out on more than $1,500 in potential reimbursement.

Yikes. Fifteen hundred dollars? That sounds pretty good right about now.

posted by Stan W @ 9:11 AM