Car: Medical Expenses

As medical expenses, you can claim the gas, oil, and filters. Not the other stuff; those expenses are not affected by your extra medical-related mileage. And to get actual expenses you must pro- rate your total expenses for gas etc ("consumables") by the proportion of miles you drove the car for medical reasons. That requires a lot of recordkeeping.

For what it's worth, I keep extremely detailed records and I found the standard mileage rate for medical expenses was easier to document and gave me a larger deduction. Your Mileage May Vary, as they say; if you drive a gas-guzzler then actual expenses may be in your favor.

Una

Why then are such expenses allowed for business related miles?

Record keeping is trivial if one know how to use, say, Excel.

Because Congress said so.

Over 50% of my 2006 miles were for medical care. I filed in October. Filing for 2007 will be a piece of cake.

However, that is irrelevant to which method (standard rate or actual cost) gets you a higher deduction. What matters is how fuel-efficient your vehicle is. Also, don't confuse rules re medical expenses with rules re business expenses; they are not related.

For me, the actual cost method would have been a PITA because I drove multiple vehicles.

Una

Silly me, obviously any decision by Congress is both rational and correct.

In my case, gaz guzzling is not the issue. In 2006, I drove only 1300 miles. In 2007, I drove only 1093 miles. So a large porttion of the costs are fixed, no matter how many miles I drove.

Seems that such costs are deductible for business use, but not for medical use. The deduction for medical use should not be inherently different than for business use.

Correct.

Correct.

I wish they were the same. And I wish deductions for volunteer use were also the same as for business use. But they are not the same.

Una

...

Why?

If you want to know the reason Congress passed a law you will have to ask Congress.

If you believe that everyone will agree with your definitions of "rational" and "correct," you are probably mistaken. That's why we have elections.

Write your members of Congress and tell them to fix it or else you'll throw 'em out. They just love to hear from constituents, especially in election years.

The last time I wrote to a member of congress, I got an absolutely useless reply.

In this internet age, it may be more effective to publicize an issue in a forum/newsgroup/blog, hope others agree, and hope some news media latches on.