Standare mileage rates

The standard rate is all-inclusive, medical is all-inclusive (with "fixed costs" not allowed), and charity is all-inclusive (with "fixed costs" not allowed), not updated for inflation.

Additional allowable expenses include tolls, parking, interest, and taxes.

"Fixed costs" include depreciation or lease payments, license and registration fees (but not the part considered property taxes), and insurance.

-- Arthur Rubin, AFSP, CRTP, Brea, CA

Because politics. It's obvious why the business rate is so high: it's a deduction of interest to the lobbyists who write the tax code.

You forgot moving expenses, which match medical. Source:

That same page says "The charitable rate is set by statute", so that explains why it's different from the others.

The page goes on to say "The standard mileage rate for business is based on an annual study of the fixed and variable costs of operating an automobile. The rate for medical and moving purposes is based on the variable costs." That sounds objective, but the fact that business can write off fixed costs but humans cannot is politics.

"Taxpayers always have the option of calculating the actual costs of using their vehicle rather than using the standard mileage rates." says the above link.

For guidance of "actual costs", there's

which says "... the applicable standard mileage rate for charitable, medical, or moving expense miles is in lieu of a deduction for variable expenses (including gasoline and oil) of the automobile allocable to those purposes. Costs for items such as depreciation or lease payments, insurance, and license and registration fees are not deductible for these purposes ..." You can take the standard rate, or you can compute actual _variable_ expenses. It doesn't specifically mention a deductible, but technically that's not an expense. Rather, repairs for the accident are the expense, and your insurance reimburses you for part of it. But I don't believe you can deduct automobile repairs or rentals because they are not directly connected with the charity or medical or moving purpose. I don't believe you can deduct an insurance deductible, any more than you can deduct the cost of insurance (as part of charitable, medical, or moving expenses).

You _can_ add parking fees and tolls to the standard rates: "A taxpayer may deduct, as separate items, parking fees and tolls attributable to the use of the automobile for charitable, medical, or moving expense purposes."

Interest and taxes? Are you sure? My understanding is that those are fixed costs, so you can claim them only if you compute actual cost, and only on business mileage, but not for medical, moving, or charity at all.

(I'm assuming by "taxes" you mean a property tax on the automobile itself. Taxes on parking fees are of course allowable along with the parking fees themselves, though it's not usual for them to be stated separately, at least in my experience.)

I suspect he meant interest on a loan to purchase the car, and sales tax at that same time. Those are not fixed costs necessarily related to owning a car.