The words that turn up on a return, a receipt or an IRS page, written the way a driver would want them explained.
Also: Form 1099-K
The form a payment app or online marketplace sends once it has paid you more than $20,000 in more than 200 payments in a year, though some send one below that; a card processor sends one for card payments of any total. Its gross amount is what customers paid, before the platform's fees, and the income counts whether or not one arrives.
More: Where the 1099 comes from · IRS: understanding your Form 1099-K (opens in a new tab)
Also: Form 1099-NEC, nonemployee compensation
The form a business sends you, and the IRS, when it paid you $2,000 or more in 2026 ($600 through 2025) for work done for that business; a person paying for their own household sends none. For 2026 it is due by February 1, 2027, and the income counts whether or not one arrives.
More: Where the 1099 comes from · Instructions for Forms 1099-MISC and 1099-NEC (opens in a new tab)
Also: reimbursement plan
A way for an employer or your own corporation to pay back work miles: you account for them and return any excess, and the payment isn't income to you.
More: IRS mileage rates · IRS Publication 463 (opens in a new tab)
Also: negligence penalty, 20% penalty
A penalty of 20% of the part of an underpayment caused by negligence or disregard of the rules, and failing to keep adequate records or to substantiate items properly counts as negligence. It is not automatic, but a missing log is one of the things it covers.
More: A drive you can't prove
Also: actual expenses, actual costs, actual car expenses
Deducting a share of what the car really costs — fuel, insurance, repairs, depreciation — instead of a flat rate per mile. Required for a fleet of five or more vehicles used at once.
More: Standard rate or actual expenses · IRS Publication 463 (opens in a new tab)
Also: Entered by hand
In OdoTax, a drive you entered yourself rather than one the phone recorded, from any day between January 1 three years ago and today. The PDF marks it with an asterisk (*) and the CSV says Entered by hand; that is not a mark against it, because a log kept by hand is still a log.
More: A drive didn't show up · Import from Google Maps Timeline
Also: adequate record
The first of the two ways to prove a drive: a log, plus documentary evidence where it is needed, that together show each element of it. An account book, a diary, trip sheets or a record kept with a logging program all qualify; a log rebuilt months later does not.
Also: AGI
Your total income from all sources less the adjustments to income on Schedule 1, figured before the standard or itemized deduction. The medical and charity limits are measured against it: medical costs count only above 7.5% of it, and from 2026 itemized charity gifts only above 0.5% of it.
More: IRS: definition of adjusted gross income (opens in a new tab) · Only the part above 7.5% of your income · Medical and charity miles
Also: adjustments to income, Schedule 1, Part II
A deduction in Part II of Schedule 1, Adjustments to Income. It lowers your adjusted gross income, so you get it whether you itemize or take the standard deduction; the moving deduction from Form 3903 is one, and so is the work driving of the few employees who can still deduct it.
Also: admin work, paperwork
The work a home office has to be used for to be your principal place of business. Publication 587's examples are billing customers, keeping books and records, ordering supplies, setting up appointments, and forwarding orders or writing reports; paperwork done in the car or a hotel room doesn't count against the office.
More: No other fixed place for the paperwork · IRS Publication 587 (opens in a new tab)
Also: Allow all the time, Always Allow, background location
The location permission that lets OdoTax log a drive that starts while the app is closed: Allow all the time on Android, Always on an iPhone. With location allowed only while the app is in use, OdoTax records nothing on a drive, because the app is never on screen then.
More: Upgrade location to all the time · Only while the app is open
Also: July 2026 rate increase
The IRS announcement that raised the business rate to 76¢ a mile, and the medical and moving rate to 23.5¢, for driving on or after July 1, 2026, because fuel prices had gone up. The charity rate stayed at 14¢, and the rest of Notice 2026-10 stayed in effect.
More: Which rate a drive gets · Announcement 2026-11 (I.R.B. 2026-29) (opens in a new tab)
Also: Schedule AI
A way to figure each estimated tax installment from what you had earned by its date, for income that started late or came unevenly; it may lower or remove the payment for some periods. To use it, you file Form 2210 with Schedule AI with your return.
More: How much avoids the penalty · Form 2210 instructions (opens in a new tab)
Also: timely kept record, full present knowledge
When each entry in a log has to be made: while you still have full present knowledge of the drive, not necessarily the same day. A log kept weekly that accounts for the week's driving counts as a timely kept record.
More: When it has to be written down · How often to fill in a log
In OdoTax, the switch that files some drives as they arrive, without asking: a route you have sorted the same way three times, a drive between a Home place and a Work place (as Commute), and drives by your work hours. It is off until you turn it on, in Settings → Classification. Any other suggestion, such as Looks like business for a drive to or from a Work place, is shown on the drive and filed only when you accept it.
More: Letting OdoTax file drives · Work hours
Also: automatic tracking
In the OdoTax app, the switch in Settings for drive detection itself. Off, nothing is recorded until you turn it back on; a pause is usually what you want instead, because it ends by itself.
Also: tax basis, cost basis
What a car counts as having cost you for tax purposes; depreciation lowers it, though not below zero, and it matters when you sell the car or switch it to actual expenses. At the standard rate, 35¢ of each 2026 business mile lowers it too.
More: What the rate covers
Also: App battery usage
Android's way of pausing apps in the background to save power. A paused OdoTax can't notice a drive starting, which is behind most missed drives on Android, so OdoTax's battery use should be Unrestricted; on Xiaomi, Huawei, Oppo and Vivo phones Autostart has to be on too.
More: Battery optimization: Restricted · Set battery to unrestricted
Also: trade or business, side business
Something you do mainly to make a profit, regularly rather than now and then; one you own alone, and haven't made a corporation, goes on Schedule C.
Also: business miles, business mileage, work miles
A mile driven for work: to a client, a job site, a supplier, a second workplace. The drive between home and a regular workplace is not one, unless a home office that qualifies is your principal place of business. With no regular workplace and no such office, home to the first stop of the day inside your metro area, and the last stop back home, are commuting too.
Also: purpose, trip purpose
One line saying why a drive was for work: what you did, and for whom (a client, a job, a property). A category such as Business says that a drive was business, not why; in OdoTax the purpose is the line the report carries beside the drive, and Settings → Custom purposes keeps your own.
Also: Your rate, custom rate
A rate per business mile of your own, set in the app (Settings → IRS standard rate → Your business rate) or in the OdoTax web account (Settings → Tax → Business rate); the app then shows it as Your rate. It replaces the IRS rate on every drive, so a year with a mid-year change has no split; Use the IRS rate, or a blank field, goes back to the IRS rate.
Also: business share, business-use percentage
A car's business miles as a share of all the miles it was driven in the year. It decides how much of that car's costs belongs to the business.
Also: van, pickup, panel truck
In Publication 463, “car” includes a van, pickup or panel truck, so the same car rules apply to them. A car for hire, such as a taxi, can use the standard mileage rate too.
More: The van or pickup · IRS Publication 463 (opens in a new tab)
Also: Schedule C, line 9, line 9
The Schedule C line for your car (line 9): business miles at the standard rate, or the business share of running costs such as gas, repairs and insurance (depreciation goes on line 13, lease payments on line 20a), plus business parking and tolls.
More: Where a car goes on Schedule C · Schedule C instructions (opens in a new tab)
Also: Car audio, Link Bluetooth
In OdoTax, a car linked to what the phone connects to in it (its Bluetooth on Android; its CarPlay or Bluetooth stereo on an iPhone), so each drive goes on the right car by itself. On Android a linked car also starts detection the moment the phone connects; on an iPhone that takes a Shortcuts automation. Other drives go on the default vehicle.
More: Can OdoTax tell my cars apart by Bluetooth? · Can a drive start the moment I get in the car?
Also: auto loan interest, vehicle loan interest
If you are self-employed, the business share of the interest on a car loan is deductible even at the standard mileage rate, on Schedule C, line 16b rather than line 9. Since 2025 some car-loan interest can go on Schedule 1-A instead, but the same interest can't be deducted twice.
Also: drive type, classify
In OdoTax, what a drive was: Business or Personal, or Commute, Medical, Charity or Moving. Only business, medical, charity and moving drives count towards a deduction, each at its own IRS rate, and Moving is only for a move on orders: active-duty military under PCS orders and, from 2026, members of the intelligence community who relocate for a change of assignment.
More: How drives get sorted
Also: charitable mileage rate, charity rate, charity miles
Driving to give your services to a qualified organization, for costs no one pays you back: 14¢ a mile all year, a rate set in the tax code itself, or your actual gas and oil, plus parking and tolls. If you itemize it goes on Schedule A, where from 2026 charity gifts count only above 0.5% of adjusted gross income; from 2026 someone who doesn't itemize can deduct up to $1,000 of cash gifts ($2,000 on a joint return).
More: Medical, moving and charity rates · IRS Publication 526 (opens in a new tab)
Also: first-year rule, switching methods
For a car you own, the standard rate has to be chosen in the first year the car is available for use in your business; in later years you can choose either the rate or actual expenses. For a leased car, it has to be used for the whole lease.
More: Who can use the business rate · IRS Publication 463 (opens in a new tab)
OdoTax connected to Claude, Anthropic's assistant, so it can answer questions about your own log, such as this year's business miles or which drives aren't sorted yet. With Also let Claude make changes ticked it can also sort drives and add one the app missed, marked Added by Claude, and with a dagger (†) in a report; it never deletes a drive or changes its miles or times.
Also: estimates, approximations
A 1930 case under which courts used to estimate a deduction when the expense was clear but the amount was not. For cars the regulation sets it aside: nothing is allowed on approximations, and Publication 463 says you can't deduct amounts you approximate or estimate.
Also: commute, commuting miles, drive to work
Home to a regular place of work and back, in either direction and at any distance. Personal and not deductible, even if you work on the way, unless a home office that qualifies is your principal place of business; Schedule C still asks for its miles, on line 44b.
More: The drive to work · Why the drive from home is usually commuting
Also: Pro · gift from OdoTax
Pro given to you by the OdoTax team: nothing to pay and nothing renews. When it runs out the account moves to the free plan, nothing is deleted, and the time it covered stays open like time that was paid for.
Also: contemporaneous record
A log written at the time of each drive. The rules don't ask for one: the regulation says a contemporaneous log is not required, only that each entry be made at or near the time, so a log kept weekly counts.
Also: your own statement
The second way to prove a drive, without an adequate record: your own detailed statement, written or spoken, backed by other evidence. For the date, the place and the miles that evidence has to be direct, such as documents; for the business purpose it can be circumstantial.
Also: CSV export, spreadsheet export
The same drives as the PDF, in a spreadsheet file; every OdoTax report comes with one, and it opens in any spreadsheet. Each row is a drive, with its times, category, purpose, addresses, miles, rate, parking, tolls, vehicle, notes and how it was logged, and a Totals row follows the drives.
More: What the CSV holds
Also: tax deduction, write-off
An amount taken off taxable income. Not a refund: what it saves depends on the rate the last dollar of income is taxed at, and business miles on Schedule C also lower self-employment tax, by about 14 cents a dollar.
More: Is a deduction the same as a refund? · Mileage calculator
Also: Primary vehicle, My Car
In OdoTax, the vehicle a drive lands on when nothing else says which car it was; the web account calls it the Primary vehicle. Creating an account creates the first one, called My Car, and an account always keeps at least one vehicle.
Also: straight-line depreciation
Deducting a car's cost over several years instead of all at once; straight line spreads it evenly. Under actual expenses it goes on Schedule C, line 13, with Form 4562; at the standard rate it isn't deducted separately, because 35¢ of each 2026 business mile counts as depreciation.
More: Where a car goes on Schedule C · IRS Publication 946 (opens in a new tab)
Also: personal stop, minimal personal use, lunch stop
A stop of your own between two work places. A stop for lunch on the way doesn't interrupt business use, but if a personal reason takes you off the direct route, you can deduct no more than the direct route between the two.
More: Stops of your own
Also: receipts, $75 rule
Receipts, bills or similar papers that back up an expense. A parking fee or toll of $75 or more needs one, unless none is readily available; below $75 the entry in your log is the record, and OdoTax keeps the amounts, not the paper.
More: Parking and tolls in a log · Do parking and tolls count?
Also: trip
One journey, from the car starting to move to it stopping: OdoTax ends a drive once the car has been stopped for about five minutes, and joins a drive that starts within 10 minutes and 300 meters of where the last one ended, in the same vehicle, back onto it, so a stop for fuel doesn't cut a trip in two. Drives shorter than 0.2 mi or over in under a minute are dropped.
Also: which day a drive counts, time zone
In OdoTax, a drive counts on its date in the time zone where it was driven. That date decides the rate it is priced at, the month and year it is counted in, and which month of the free plan's limit it uses.
Also: app log, spreadsheet log
A log kept on a computer, in a spreadsheet or an app, counts as an adequate record, with the same duties as paper: Publication 583 says the system has to index, store, preserve, retrieve and reproduce the records in legible format. The rules say nothing about GPS.
More: Paper, spreadsheet or app · IRS Publication 583 (opens in a new tab)
Also: sales route, delivery route
A regular sales or delivery route. Publication 463 lets you record the route's length once, the date of each trip at or near the time, and the year's total miles; a sales representative on one needn't write the purpose of each trip, because the route explains it.
More: Round trips and regular routes · The exception is narrower than it sounds
Also: underpayment penalty
A charge that works like interest on each estimated tax installment paid late or short, from its due date until it is paid, at the IRS underpayment rate, which is set each quarter. A payment goes to the oldest unpaid installment first, even if you designate a later one.
More: If you have paid nothing so far · Form 2210 instructions (opens in a new tab)
Also: quarterly taxes, estimated tax payments
Tax paid four times a year with Form 1040-ES when nobody withholds it and you expect to owe $1,000 or more; for 2026 the payments are due April 15, June 15 and September 15, 2026, and January 15, 2027. Mileage lowers the income they are calculated on.
More: Quarterly estimated taxes · IRS: estimated taxes (opens in a new tab)
Also: exclusive use test
One of the tests a home office has to pass, beside regular use and use for the business: a specific area of your home used only for the business. It can be a corner of a room with no permanent partition, but a space the family also uses, like the kitchen table, fails.
More: Exclusive use · IRS Publication 587 (opens in a new tab)
Also: fleet rule, five or more vehicles
If you own or lease five or more cars used for business at the same time, you can't use the standard mileage rate for any of them, and deduct actual expenses instead. Five cars used one at a time, in turn, don't count.
Also: 1040, tax return
Your federal income tax return; Schedule C and Schedule 1 go with it.
Also: Estimated Tax for Individuals
Estimated Tax for Individuals: the form with the rules, the due dates and the worksheet for paying estimated tax, and the vouchers for paying it by check.
More: Who has to pay · Form 1040-ES for 2026 (opens in a new tab)
Also: amended return
The form for changing a tax return you already filed.
The form for the few employees who can still deduct work costs: an Armed Forces reservist's travel more than 100 miles from home, and a qualified performing artist's or a fee-basis state or local official's expenses, carried to Schedule 1, line 12, and impairment-related work expenses, which go on Schedule A. Other employees can't use it for their driving: unreimbursed employee expenses are no longer deductible on a federal return.
The form for the estimated tax penalty, figured for each installment and for each day it stays unpaid. You file it yourself to ask for a waiver of the penalty or to use the annualized income installment method, among a few other cases; otherwise the IRS figures the penalty and sends a bill.
Also: moving expenses form
The moving-expenses form, now only for active-duty military moving under PCS orders and, from 2026, intelligence-community employees who relocate for a change in assignment. Car miles at the moving rate, with parking, tolls and lodging on the way, go on line 2; what the government paid for the move outside your W-2 wages comes off on line 4; the rest goes to Schedule 1, line 14, whether or not you itemize.
More: Where a PCS move goes on the return · Form 3903 instructions (opens in a new tab)
The form filed with depreciation or a section 179 deduction, which go on Schedule C, line 13. If you file it, its Part V, Listed Property, asks the vehicle questions instead of Schedule C, Part IV.
More: Part IV, line by line · Form 4562 instructions (opens in a new tab)
One of two ways to figure the home office's own costs for Schedule C, line 30; the other is the simplified method. Its instructions repeat the principal place of business test.
Also: free tier, free limit
OdoTax without a subscription. It needs only an email address and doesn't expire, and detection, sorting, the deduction total, reports and any number of vehicles all work; drives past the free plan's monthly limit arrive locked, and the count starts again on the 1st.
More: Pricing · The free limit
Also: saved route
In OdoTax, a route, from one place to another, saved with its category and purpose; every drive on it is sorted the moment it arrives, with no suggestion to accept. A drive it filed says so and can be changed like any other.
More: Frequent drives
Also: gig economy
The IRS's name for work found through an app or a platform, such as driving a car for booked rides or deliveries. Gig income has to be reported even when no form was issued for it.
More: DoorDash mileage deduction · IRS: manage taxes for your gig work (opens in a new tab)
Also: tools in the car, signs on the car
Carrying tools or instruments while commuting doesn't make the drive deductible; only the extra cost of hauling them is, such as renting a trailer. Advertising or your name on the car doesn't turn personal use into business use either.
Also: Held, held for review
In OdoTax, a trip that was recorded but may not have been driven, because it went faster than a car usually goes, as on a train, or moved like a ferry crossing. It counts for nothing, in totals or reports, until you classify it; a flight never becomes a drive at all.
Also: hobby income
Something you do mainly for pleasure rather than profit; its income is still reported, on Schedule 1, line 8j, but none of its costs, the miles included, can be deducted.
Also: business use of your home
The deduction for the office's own costs, separate from the mileage: it goes on Schedule C, line 30, figured on Form 8829 or with the simplified method.
Also: principal place of business, qualifying home office, office in the home
A space at home used only and regularly for the business that is its principal place of business: most often because you do the paperwork there (billing, the books, ordering, setting up appointments) and do no substantial part of it at any other fixed place, even if the paid work is done elsewhere. With one, the drive from home to any other work location in the same business counts.
More: The home office rule · IRS Publication 587 (opens in a new tab)
A free way to pay the IRS from a checking or savings account, with no sign-in. Your IRS Online Account also pays from a bank account, can schedule a payment up to 365 days ahead and shows the estimated payments you have made.
Also: itemized deductions, itemize
Listing deductions on Schedule A, the itemized-deductions form, instead of taking the standard deduction; in most cases your tax is lower with the larger of the two. It matters for medical and charity miles, not business miles.
Also: leased car
Under actual expenses, lease payments on the car go on Schedule C, line 20a; at the standard rate the rate covers them. If you use the standard rate for a leased car, you have to use it for the whole lease.
Also: section 280F
Property the tax code names in section 280F(d)(4), with any passenger automobile first on the list. Section 274(d) allows no deduction for it unless you substantiate the amount, the time and place, and the business purpose.
More: What the IRS actually requires · Form 4562 instructions (opens in a new tab)
Also: Google Maps Timeline
A record of where your phone has been, kept for you rather than by you. It can back up a log, or help rebuild a missed drive beside your own statement, but it isn't the log: it doesn't say which drives were business or why. OdoTax can import drives from Google Maps Timeline, marked Imported from Google Timeline, and with a double dagger (‡) in a report.
More: Location history and trip summaries · Import from Google Maps Timeline
Also: Locked
In OdoTax, a drive past the free plan's monthly limit: recorded, but only the day and time it started are shown until it opens, it can't be sorted, and it is left out of totals and reports. Going Pro opens every drive from then on, and an account's first payment also reopens the 31 days before it. A locked drive no payment could reopen any more is hidden from the list, not deleted.
More: The free limit · Pricing
Also: Monetary Allowance in Lieu of Transportation
The Monetary Allowance in Lieu of Transportation: the military's mileage pay for a PCS move, paid per mile on the official distance of each part of the travel, for up to two cars, not on the miles you actually drove. What it paid comes off the move on Form 3903, line 4.
More: MALT and the allowances
Also: tax bracket
The rate your last dollar of income is taxed at. What a deduction saves in income tax depends on it, which is why a deduction isn't a refund of the same amount.
More: What a deduction does
Also: medical miles, medical rate, medical mileage rate
Driving primarily for, and essential to, medical care for you, your spouse or a dependent: 20.5¢ a mile through June 30, 2026 and 23.5¢ from July 1, or your actual gas and oil, plus parking and tolls. It goes on Schedule A with your other medical costs, and only the part above 7.5% of adjusted gross income counts, and only if you itemize.
More: Medical mileage · IRS Publication 502 (opens in a new tab)
Also: metropolitan area
Generally the city and its suburbs; the IRS gives no distance in miles. With no regular place of work, a drive from home to a temporary work site outside it counts, and one inside it is commuting.
Also: July 1 rate change, two rates in one year
The IRS can reset the standard rate part-way through a year, as it did most recently in 2022 and 2026. Each drive is priced by the rate in force on its own date.
More: What if the rate changed mid-year? · Which rate a drive gets
Also: mileage logbook, trip log, vehicle log
Your record of each business drive (the date, where you went, why, and the miles) plus, for each car, its total miles for the year, the date it went into business use and what it cost. Paper, a spreadsheet and an app all count, and it is needed with either method of deducting a car.
Also: reimbursement, mileage allowance
What an employer or a client pays back for miles driven for the work, at a rate it sets; under an employer's accountable plan it isn't income to you. In OdoTax, a report made with a rate per mile of your own is a reimbursement claim instead of a deduction log.
Also: moving rate, PCS mileage, moving expenses
The drive from the old home to the new one on a move on orders, once for each person: a military move under PCS orders or, from 2026, an intelligence-community relocation for a change of assignment. 20.5¢ a mile through June 30, 2026 and 23.5¢ from July 1, or actual gas and oil, plus parking and tolls. It goes on Form 3903, less what the government paid for it, and counts whether or not you itemize. Other moves for work are no longer deductible.
Also: saved place, Home, Work
In OdoTax, an address you have named, such as home, the office or a client, so the log shows your name for it instead of a street address. Its kind matters: a drive between a Home place and a Work place, either way, is suggested as Commute, and any other drive to or from a Work place as business.
More: Named places
Also: first business stop
With no regular office and no office at home, Publication 463 treats your first business stop of the day inside the metro area as your office: home to it, and the last stop back home, are commuting, and the drives between stops are business. A drive between home and a temporary work site outside that metro area counts.
Also: Leave out warnings
What an OdoTax report prints as the purpose of a business drive that has none, counting how many there are, so you can add them while you still remember. Leave out warnings, under PDF details, makes the PDF without those notes.
More: The trip log in a report
Also: 2026 mileage rate notice
The IRS notice that set the 2026 standard mileage rates from January 1: 72.5¢ a mile for business, 20.5¢ for medical and moving, 14¢ for charity. It also sets the depreciation part of the business rate at 35¢ a mile, and says most employees can no longer deduct unreimbursed travel.
More: 2026 IRS mileage rates · Notice 2026-10 (opens in a new tab)
Also: odometer
The number on the car's odometer on a given date. One near the start of the year and one near the end prove the car's total miles, and the miles the log claims have to fit inside that total.
More: Should I add odometer readings? · Once a year, for each car
Also: ordinary and necessary expense
The general test for a business cost: ordinary means common and accepted in your field of business, and necessary means helpful and appropriate for it, not indispensable. Drives Publication 463 doesn't name, such as door-knocking or dropping off a closing gift, rest on it, with a purpose you can write down.
Also: line 44c
Schedule C, line 44c: the year's miles that were neither business nor commuting, worked out as the car's total less those two. In an OdoTax report of all drives, a car with odometer readings at the start and the end of the period gets exactly that; without them, Other is the personal, medical, charity, moving and unsorted drives OdoTax recorded.
More: Part IV, line by line
Also: Drives changed since, Made under earlier rules
An OdoTax report holds the drives as they were when it was made. Classify, change, add or delete a drive in its period afterwards and the report is marked Out of date, its preview saying Drives changed since with what the period comes to now; Made under earlier rules means OdoTax has since changed how it counts. Update makes the PDF and CSV again.
Also: multi-member LLC, two-member LLC
How the IRS taxes a business with two or more owners, a two-member LLC included, unless it chose otherwise; the business's costs then generally go on the partnership's own return, not on a Schedule C.
Also: pause tracking, Paused
In OdoTax, auto-tracking asleep for a set time: nothing is detected or recorded until it resumes by itself, though you can still add a drive by hand. A pause belongs to the account, so every phone signed in to it pauses.
More: How do I pause tracking?
Also: Payment didn't go through
What OdoTax shows when a renewal failed because the card was declined or expired: pro keeps running while the payment is retried. When the retries run out the plan is paused (Pro is on hold, in the app) and the account is on the free plan until it is paid; nothing is deleted.
Also: PCS, PCS orders
A military order moving a member of the Armed Forces on active duty to a new post: to the first one, from one post to another, or from the last one home or to a nearer point in the United States, within a year of leaving active duty or the time the Joint Travel Regulations allow. Its drive still deducts, for the member and their family; apart from an intelligence-community relocation from 2026, other moves no longer do.
More: Who can deduct a move · Form 3903 instructions (opens in a new tab)
Also: personal miles, personal use
A drive that is neither for work nor a medical, charity or moving drive — the school run, the shop, the gym. Logged and set aside: it counts for nothing, and Schedule C counts its miles among the year's other miles.
More: How drives get sorted
Also: car property tax
If you are self-employed, the business share of state and local personal property tax on the car is deductible on Schedule C even at the standard mileage rate. A registration fee is not: the rate covers it.
Also: In business use since
The date a car started being used in the business (Schedule C, line 43); for a family car, the day the business started using it, not the day you bought it. It marks the first year, when the standard rate has to be chosen, and in OdoTax it is In business use since, set on the vehicle in the web account.
More: Part IV, line by line
Also: online miles, mileage estimate
A ride or delivery app's own count of your miles, such as the miles you drove while active in that app. Each platform counts by its own rules and lists only its own trips, so its figure isn't your log, though its records can back one up.
In OdoTax, what a drive is worth as a business drive, shown while you sort it and, on an iPhone, on the Lock Screen while the drive is recorded. Parking and tolls you add to the drive raise it.
Also: Use precise location
The phone's setting that gives OdoTax an exact position rather than a rough one. A log built from approximate positions isn't accurate enough to claim, and on an iPhone no drive can be recorded without it.
Also: OdoTax Pro, subscription
The OdoTax subscription, monthly or yearly: it removes the free plan's monthly limit, and everything else works the same. Drives recorded while you paid stay open after you cancel, unless that payment is refunded, and an account's first payment also reopens the 31 days before it.
More: Pricing · What does going pro change?
Also: net profit
What the business took in, less what it cost; income tax and self-employment tax are figured on it.
Also: Tax Guide for Small Business
The IRS's tax guide for small business, including what counts as business income.
Also: Travel, Gift, and Car Expenses
The IRS's guide to travel, gift and car expenses, where most of the rules for deducting business driving are written, from commuting and the standard rate to what a log has to show (Table 5-1).
More: IRS Publication 463 (opens in a new tab) · What the IRS wants in a mileage log
Also: Medical and Dental Expenses
The IRS's guide to medical and dental expenses: what counts as medical care, the drive to it included, and the 7.5% limit.
Also: Tax Withholding and Estimated Tax
The IRS's guide to tax withholding and estimated tax: who has to pay estimated tax, what it covers and when it is due.
Also: Charitable Contributions
The IRS's guide to charitable contributions. It allows 14¢ a mile or your actual gas and oil for driving to serve a qualified organization, and asks for reliable written records of the miles.
Also: Business Use of Your Home
The IRS's guide to business use of your home, with the tests a home office has to pass.
More: IRS Publication 587 (opens in a new tab) · Home office and mileage
Also: How To Depreciate Property
The IRS's guide to depreciation. For listed property, a car included, it says to keep the records for as long as any recapture can still occur: if the car's business use falls to 50% or less during its recovery period, the excess depreciation goes back into income.
Also: married couple business
A choice for a married couple who run a business together, file a joint return and both take part in it regularly and substantially: each files a Schedule C for their share. It is open only if the business isn't an LLC or another state-law entity.
More: IRS: election for married couples (opens in a new tab)
Also: rebuilt log
A log written up months later from calendars, invoices or receipts. It isn't an adequate record and can't be an estimate: it counts only as your own statement, drive by drive, as far as evidence from the time backs it up. Rebuilding is a right only when records were lost to something like a fire or a flood.
Also: how long to keep records
Keep a log at least 3 years from the date you file the return that claims the deduction, a return filed early counting as filed on the due date: a 2026 log filed with an April 15, 2027 return is open until April 15, 2030. Some cases run longer, such as 6 years if you leave out more than 25% of the gross income shown.
More: Keep records for years, not months · IRS: how long should I keep records? (opens in a new tab)
Also: tax refund
Money the IRS sends back when you paid more tax during the year than you owe.
Also: regular workplace
A place you work at or report to regularly, such as an office, a shop, a studio or a coworking desk; a job site expected to last more than a year is treated the same way. Home to it is commuting however far it is, unless a home office that qualifies is your principal place of business, and a driver who works from the car usually has none.
Also: regular use test
Another test a home office has to pass: incidental or occasional business use is not regular use, judged on all the facts and circumstances. A space you sit in now and then to pay an invoice doesn't pass.
More: Regular use
Also: mileage report, PDF report
In OdoTax, a period you pick as a PDF and a CSV: the deduction by form, the drives behind each form, the trip log with one row per drive, and the Schedule C, Part IV questions to tick and sign. Drives held for review and locked drives are left out, and the report says how many; in a report of all drives, unsorted, personal and commute drives are listed but not deducted.
More: What does the report contain? · Export a log for your taxes
In the OdoTax web account, the year OdoTax opens on: the odometer totals for each car and the table of rates. It limits nothing: a report covers the dates you pick, and every drive stays in Trips.
Also: out and back
A drive out and back. The rules let a round trip, or one uninterrupted business use, be recorded as a single entry. In OdoTax, a drive that ends within about 200 meters of where it began is shown as a round trip, and Ungroup round trip in the app splits it at the turnaround.
More: Round trips and regular routes · Round trips in OdoTax
Also: S corp, S-corp
A corporation whose profit is taxed on its owners' returns; an owner who works in it is treated as its employee. The car is then usually paid back per mile under an accountable plan, not a line on the owner's Schedule C.
More: IRS: S corporation employees and officers (opens in a new tab)
Also: 110% rule
The amount that keeps the estimated tax penalty away: withholding and on-time payments reaching the smaller of 100% of last year's tax (110% if last year's AGI was over $150,000, or $75,000 if married filing separately) or 90% of this year's, in four equal installments. It doesn't settle the year: the rest is still due with the return.
Also: sample log
Keeping an adequate record for part of the year and using it to prove the whole year, if other evidence shows that part is representative. A sample proves a share of the car's use, not a number of miles, and it suits a steady routine better than a varied one.
More: Sampling, briefly
Also: Additional Income and Adjustments to Income
Additional Income and Adjustments to Income: the form that carries extra income to your Form 1040, and the adjustments that lower it. A business's profit from Schedule C goes on its line 3, a hobby's income on line 8j, and a move on orders from Form 3903 on line 14.
Also: itemized deductions form
The form for itemized deductions, used when you itemize instead of taking the standard deduction. Medical miles go on it with all medical costs, which count only above 7.5% of adjusted gross income, and miles driven for a charity with your other charity gifts, which from 2026 count only above 0.5% of it.
More: Itemizing, the second condition · Schedule A instructions (opens in a new tab)
Also: Profit or Loss From Business
Profit or Loss From Business: the form a sole proprietor, or the owner of a single-member LLC not taxed as a corporation, files their business income and expenses on. Car and truck expenses sit on line 9, and the car's miles in Part IV.
More: Car expenses on Schedule C · Schedule C instructions (opens in a new tab)
Also: Information on Your Vehicle, lines 43 to 47b
Schedule C's questions about the car, lines 43 to 47b: when it went into business use, its business, commuting and other miles, whether it was available for personal use off duty, whether you have another vehicle for personal use, and whether you have evidence, and whether it is written. If you depreciate the car or file Form 4562, the same questions go in its Part V instead.
More: Part IV, line by line · Schedule C instructions (opens in a new tab)
Also: self-employment tax form
The form that figures self-employment tax; an independent contractor files it with Schedule C once net earnings from self-employment come to $400 or more.
Also: section 179 deduction
An election to deduct much of a car's cost in its first year in service, under actual expenses, allowed only if the car is used more than 50% for business. Take it, or the special depreciation allowance, and that car can never use the standard mileage rate.
More: The van or pickup · Form 4562 instructions (opens in a new tab)
Also: §274(d)
The part of the tax code that allows no deduction for listed property, a car included, unless you substantiate it by adequate records or by your own statement backed by other evidence: the amount, the time and place, and the business purpose.
Also: independent contractor, 1099 contractor, freelancer
Working for yourself, in a business you own, rather than as someone's employee: you're paid for the result of the work, not managed as an employee, and nobody takes tax out of what you're paid. The other name, 1099 contractor, comes from the 1099 forms that report what you were paid.
More: What is a 1099 contractor? · IRS: independent contractor defined (opens in a new tab)
Also: SE tax
Social Security and Medicare paid by the self-employed: 15.3% on 92.35% of net profit, owed once that 92.35% comes to $400 or more. Each dollar of business deduction on Schedule C saves about 14 cents of it, on top of what it saves in income tax.
More: Self-employment tax · IRS Topic 554 (opens in a new tab)
Also: one-owner LLC
A limited liability company (LLC) with one owner, who reports its income and costs on Schedule C like a sole proprietor unless the LLC chose to be taxed as a corporation.
Also: sole proprietorship
Someone who owns a business alone and hasn't made it a corporation, and reports its income and costs on Schedule C of their own return.
Also: bonus depreciation
Extra depreciation in a car's first year, often called bonus depreciation; claim it, or a section 179 deduction, and that car can never use the standard mileage rate.
More: Who can use the business rate · Form 4562 instructions (opens in a new tab)
The flat amount taken off your income when you don't itemize: for 2026, $16,100 single or married filing separately, $24,150 head of household and $32,200 married filing jointly, more at 65 or older or blind. Business miles come off your profit on Schedule C either way.
Also: IRS mileage rate, mileage rate, standard rate
One figure per business mile that stands in for the cost of running the car: depreciation or lease payments, repairs, gas, oil, insurance and registration. 72.5¢ for drives through June 30, 2026, and 76¢ from July 1; business parking and tolls go on top.
More: IRS mileage rates · 2026 IRS mileage rates · IRS: standard mileage rates (opens in a new tab)
The IRS's name for three groups it treats as self-employed for all federal tax purposes. Licensed real estate agents and direct sellers are among them when paid for sales or other output rather than hours, under a written contract that says they won't be treated as employees; certain companion sitters are the third.
More: Why it is your deduction to take · IRS: statutory nonemployees (opens in a new tab)
Also: substantiate
Being able to show date, distance, destination and business purpose for a drive. Without it the deduction can be disallowed in full rather than trimmed.
Also: How To Prove Certain Business Expenses
The table in Publication 463 that lists what a car record has to show: the date, the miles, the business destination and the business purpose of each drive, plus the car's cost, the date it went into business use and its total miles for the year.
More: The four things every trip needs · IRS Publication 463 (opens in a new tab)
Generally the area of your regular place of business, or, if you have none, possibly where you regularly live; travel rules start only when work keeps you away from it overnight.
Also: temporary job site, temporary work site
A place where the work is realistically expected to last, and does last, a year or less, such as a client's office for a project or a customer's place for one job. With a regular place of work, the drive from home to one counts however far it is. A job expected to last more than a year isn't one, and one you later expect to run past a year stops being one from that date.
More: Three cases, side by side · Working from a shop or yard
Also: qualified tips, no tax on tips
From tax year 2025 through 2028, a deduction of up to $25,000 of qualified tips a year per return, not per person, for the occupations on an IRS list, delivery people among them. It shrinks above $150,000 of modified adjusted gross income ($300,000 on a joint return), and a married couple has to file jointly to take it. For the self-employed it can't be more than the net income of the business the tips came from, and the tips must be reported on Form 1099-MISC, 1099-NEC or 1099-K.
More: 1099s and tips for 2026 · IRS: what gig workers should know (opens in a new tab)
Also: parking fees, tolls, parking and tolls
Business parking fees and tolls are deducted on top of the standard rate, at what you paid; parking at your regular place of work is commuting and doesn't count. Traffic fines never do, and a fee of $75 or more needs a receipt unless none is readily available.
More: Do parking and tolls count? · Parking and tolls in a log
In OdoTax, a drive recorded without signal and kept on the phone until it uploads, which it does by itself; meanwhile Home counts them, or says waiting to upload when the phone has signal but OdoTax can't be reached. GPS needs no internet, so the route and the miles are recorded either way.
Also: red row
In the OdoTax app, Settings → Tracking configuration lists everything detection depends on, starting with whether drive detection is running at all, each with a green tick or a red issue and a button to fix it. It is the first place to look when a drive went missing.
More: A red row in Tracking configuration · Tracking stopped working
Also: overnight travel, business travel
Work that keeps you away from the general area of your tax home substantially longer than an ordinary day's work, so that you need sleep or rest. Hotel and airfare then go on Schedule C, line 24a and meals on line 24b, generally at 50%; your own car on that trip stays on line 9.
More: Where a car goes on Schedule C · IRS Publication 463 (opens in a new tab)
Also: second phone
Signed in to the same OdoTax account, each phone records the drives it is on, all in one log. When both are in the car, OdoTax keeps one copy of the drive and sets the other aside, so it is not counted twice; a pause on one pauses both.
Also: employee mileage deduction
Work costs an employee pays and the employer doesn't pay back. They aren't deductible on a federal return, and the 2025 tax law made that permanent, apart from Armed Forces reservists, fee-basis state or local officials, certain performing artists, eligible educators and employees with impairment-related work expenses.
More: Who can use the business rate · Notice 2026-10 (opens in a new tab)
Also: Unsorted, To classify, unclassified drive
In OdoTax, a drive still waiting for you to say what it was; the app and the website list it under To classify. It adds nothing to the deduction until you classify it, and a report of all drives lists it as Unsorted, not deducted, with its miles under Other.
More: How drives get sorted
Also: employee, Form W-2
Someone whose employer takes tax out of each paycheck and sends a Form W-2 in January; on a federal return, an employee can't deduct driving the employer doesn't pay back, apart from a few groups such as Armed Forces reservists.
More: 1099 or W-2: how to tell
Also: Social Security wage base
The income ceiling above which the 12.4% Social Security part of self-employment tax stops: $184,500 of wages and self-employment earnings together in 2026. Medicare carries on with no ceiling.
More: Self-employment tax · IRS Topic 554 (opens in a new tab)
Also: my.odo.tax
The same OdoTax account in a browser, at my.odo.tax: the same drives, with a month of them on one screen for sorting many at once, the full report options and the tax settings. Detection, pausing and Tracking configuration stay on the phone, because they are about that phone.
More: Is there a web version?
Also: tax withholding
Tax an employer takes out of each paycheck and pays in for you; nobody withholds tax from what you earn in your own business, which is why estimated taxes may be due. Withholding from a W-2 job counts toward estimated tax as if paid evenly through the year.
In OdoTax, a week of time windows: a drive inside one is suggested as business, a drive outside as personal. They start as Monday to Friday, 9 to 6, and file drives only when Auto-classify is on too.
Also: 1099 or W-2, Form SS-8
How the IRS decides whether you are an employee or a contractor when it isn't obvious: who controls what you do and how, who controls the money side (pay, expenses, tools), and the relationship itself. The label in a contract doesn't decide it, and Form SS-8 asks the IRS to rule, which it says takes at least six months.
More: 1099 or W-2: how to tell · IRS: contractor or employee? (opens in a new tab)
Turn OdoTax on once, drive exactly as you do now, and let the report write itself.