Taxes and exports

I didn’t keep a mileage log. What can I do?

A rebuilt log, not an estimate

A log can still be rebuilt drive by drive from records made at the time, and OdoTax can hold it: drives imported from Google Maps Timeline, or added by hand. It weighs less than a log kept at the time: IRS Publication 463 says a timely kept record “has more value than a statement prepared later”. An estimate cannot take its place; the same publication says: “You can’t deduct amounts that you approximate or estimate.” A total worked out from memory, such as so many miles a week, is an estimate.

Where records are incomplete, Publication 463 asks for your own written or oral statement with specific information about each element of the expense, and other supporting evidence that is sufficient to establish it. For the cost, time, place or date, that evidence has to be direct or documentary: a witness’s detailed statement, or a document such as a receipt or a paid bill. For the business purpose it can be circumstantial.

Whether a rebuilt log supports a deduction on your own return is a question for a tax professional.

What a log can be rebuilt from

Records made at the time of the drives, not memory: calendar entries, invoices, client emails, receipts, a delivery app’s trip history, or a location history such as Google Maps Timeline. None of them is the log by itself: a location history does not say which drives were for business or why, and a platform’s records list only that platform’s trips, not your other business drives.

For each business drive, Publication 463’s table of records asks for the date, the business destination, the business purpose and the miles: What does the IRS want to see in a mileage log?.

Adding the drives to OdoTax

If Google Maps Timeline was on when you drove, it kept the drives you made, and OdoTax can import them: How do I import drives from Google Maps Timeline?. Timeline is the only history OdoTax imports. A drive known from any other record is added by hand, one drive at a time: open Trips, click Add a drive, enter From and To, and set the time. OdoTax measures the road between the two addresses. The full steps are in How do I add a drive by hand?.

Both ways reach back to January 1 three years ago. An imported drive arrives unsorted: its category, and the purpose of a business drive, are still yours to add. The free plan counts 35 drives in each calendar month, by the day each drive started and not the day it was added: What happens when I hit the free limit?.

How OdoTax marks these drives

OdoTax marks a drive added afterwards, so it can be told from one it recorded. In the app and on the website it says Added by hand or Imported from Google Timeline. In a report’s PDF a drive added by hand carries an asterisk (*) and an imported one a double dagger (‡); the CSV says which in its How logged column. The PDF’s last page, under How this log was prepared, says which trips were entered by hand or imported and which were recorded as they happened.

Odometer readings pin down the car’s total miles for the year, and a reading can be entered for a past date: Should I add odometer readings?. To have drives recorded from now on: How do I turn automatic tracking on?.

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