1099 expenses

Does your friend have a home office? The home office is the primary place of business, where you may sit at a computer and schedule appointments, etc, possibly meet clients. Also, if there is a home office, is that area in the home used exclusively for this business?

==Commuting from home to the first business stop is NOT deductible. Commuting home from the last business stop is also NOT dedictible.

All business mileage in between those two are deductible.

If your main place of business was at home, then all business trips would be deductible. In the case you describe, it seems that he does his work with the "company" or "client" and trips to that location would not be deductible.

Almost any expense he incurs in order to do his work would be deductible, such as supplies, tools, safety equipment, parking, tolls, union or professional society dues,etc. Get a copy of Schedule C for a list of deductions. It is available at

Nothing personal, but you are NOT doing your friend any favors by doing this return. Clearly you don't know what is or isn't deductible. You're likely to miss things or at least misinterpret things. I appreciate your desire to help your friend, but what will happen to your friendship IF your friend pays more in tax then he should because of your well-intentioned mistakes? And what happens if your friend gets audited because of something you THOUGHT was allowable?

Commuting is NOT deductible. But you have to know what commuting really is.

Commuting miles are what you drive to get to your FIRST place of business. If he drives from his home to the office then out to clients the miles from home to the office is nondeductible commuting. The miles from the office to the client are deductible miles.

BUT if he has his own home office and he starts work there before he leaves to go to the first job, then all the miles may be deductible business miles. And if starts at home some days but not others then some days he could have all deductible miles and some days only some miles would be deductible.

Does your friend have a mileage log or an appointment book so that you can create a mileage log from a map program like Google Maps? If not, no deduction - IRC 274 requires a log.

Sounds relatively easy, but this brings us to what constitutes a home office. These rules are intricate and are NOT for the uninitiated.

You both need to be real careful with this. He can get in trouble because its his return and he's legally responsible for everything on it. You can lose a friend and maybe even get sued by him for your mistakes.

Friends don't screw up tax returns - if you want to be a great friend and help him out, pay for a pro to do this return.

Gene E. Utterback, EA, RFC, ABA

Well, that's kind of the point. I have become a professional, although certainly new to the field (this year), and over the past several years as a novice, this board has brought me quite a bit of knowledge. I'm going through Schedule C, and wanted to get some more interpretations. What I'm seeing here is basically what I agree with, though I have heard differently from others in the past concerning employees who were 1099 workers. As I suspected, I think they were pursuing some deductions a bit too aggressively. Even if you are a 1099 employee, if your driving to the same location each day, using that companies materials and supplies, there will be very few 'self-employed' deductions available.

Thanks for your comments.

Drew

I learned today about a section 1706 in the tax code that makes it even harder, though I imagine not impossible, for tech workers to be classified as independent contractors. It's all a bit strange, because there are a lot of software engineers out here who are hired as contractors, and paid a bit more than regular employees because they have to pay the full 15.3% FICA tax, their own medical insurance, there own SUI/SDI if they choose, etc. I wonder if the IRS goes after these companies, or how the contractor-employees report their income.

There is no §1706 of the tax code. It's §1706 of the Tax Reform Act of 1986, that amended the Revenue Act of 1978. In other words, this has been the law since 1986. There's nothing new there.