CoachMB

Hi all, im a little uncertain as to what i can or cant claim as business mileage in my position.

I am here on a work visa (for now, starting the green card process soon), and work in youth soccer. I'm sure you have seen this type of thing before, i work for one of these organizations that brings over british coaches, and in turn hires them out to work with various teams, clubs, organizations, etc.

They currently contract me to a particular club for most of the year, so while remaining an employee of said company, for all intents and purposes i basically work full time with the club for that period, they just pay my employer who then pays me as opposed to hiring me themselves directly.

The role is a mix of coaching on the field most evenings and weekends, but also an administrative side - website managed, club communications, setting up/managing programs, registrations, etc. All this i do from home during the day, before heading out in the evenings to coach. I don't pay rent where i am living so i dont/cant claim for a home office like i would be able to if i owned or rented the place I'm living in.

How then should i treat the miles i do when driving to and from the town/fields that i coach in? When i head there during the week i have usually already done a good 5-6 hours of work from home before i go out to coach. Would that drive there and back be business mileage? or simply be my commute?

Its the same town for most of the time, but i am not a direct employee of that organization. I have read that if its a temporary work location then it can be counted. I am pretty consistently working with this club, but i guess technically my employer could send me somewhere else too, so i don't know where that fits in. There is also some movement between fields within that town, or occasionally my employer will have me go to other locations/programs as well.

So with those factors in mind my questions are:

1. If i work at home all day then drive to this particular town to fulfill services that my employer has contracted me out to said club - can i class that as business mileage there and back? Or since its my first trip of the day do i have to take that as my commute regardless of whether i already worked at home for most of the day?
2. If i drive between fields after that drive, I'm fairly sure from reading up that i can count those as business miles, is that correct?
3. If i have to go to that town for any other work related purpose (tomorrow for example i have to go pick up some equipment), is that again a commute because its my first drive tomorrow even though I've already worked at home all day?
4. If its the case that my first drive is my commute and the next i can claim, then my employers head office is less than 2 miles from where I'm living. If that is the case then it would make financial sense for me to always drive to the office first for something and then drive to my coaching sessions so i can then claim the 10 mile trip there. Surely that doesnt make any sense?
5. If my employer sends me to another town/location other than that main one for one off sessions, then can i claim those as business mileage?

Thanks in advance to anyone taking the time to read it. I have previously always just done the standard deduction, but since it seems i will be doing my green card soon and will be here for the foreseeable future i would like to understand more about what i can or can't do.

Guindalf

Where are you based for work purposes? From what I'm seeing, your base of operations is your home. Therefore any mileage traveled for work purposes is considered business mileage.

I use to work for a company that was approximately 11 miles from my home. However, I was traveling all over the states of Georgia and Kentucky (mainly). I did not claim mileage when I traveled to the office and back, but everything else was fair game, including when I left from home to go directly to a job.

So, forget about that 'first trip of the day' cr@p!

CoachMB

Thanks for the response. Bit of a grey area maybe in terms of where I'm based for work.

There are 2 sides the the role i do. One is the administrative side, for which i am based at 'home'.. I say 'home' since i don't claim for a home office if that makes a difference, i don't pay any rent where i am living at the moment.

I then travel to the soccer fields most days, so there's an argument that that is a principle place of business for me and so just a commute?

Follow up question..

If i was to move and start paying rent somewhere and set up a home office for my administrative tasks, could i then claim for a home office? Im an employee, not an independent contractor, so not sure if that makes a difference?

Appreciate any further words of wisdom!

CoachMB

Further to my reply, i also posted the same question on the Q&A section of Turbo Tax and received the following response:

Seems to contradict your response. From their response it sounds like regardless of if I've worked at home that day if i then drive to a regular field that i got to a lot then its just commuting.

But if i go somewhere 'unusual' then i can deduct.

What happens if i drive to my office first then the field? Does that trip then become deductible? Seems weird if so, but whats the difference between that and working at home before going to the field?

Guindalf

It contradicts nothing. If your office is your home (for which you CAN claim), then every time you set foot outside the house on business, you can claim the mileage, even if you don't physically drive there!

Don't get hung up on the mechanics of it.

morpeth

I don't know if Turbo Tax is as specific as one may want in a case like his. As I read it part of definition of "to commute" is where you regularly work which you have indicated is at home. So occasional visits to the "home office" would appear deductible. All other travel should be deductible, though working at the same field on a "regular"basis I would wonder how regular is defined. A soccer coach I knew who ran summer programs had different had different programs during the summer, and deduced his commute to all of them, even if hey were regular for say 4 or 5 weeks.

thinbrit

As you genuinely work from home, this is indeed your office. You then commute to your 'other office' the sports field. You can take deductions for mileage between offices. So, as long as you start your day at office 1 (your home), you can then deduct for the trip to office 2 (the sports field). The commute back home from the sports filed is not a valid deduction, only the trip between offices.
I do exactly this. I have a home office I typically work from, but whenever I drive to my hospital from my home, and have been working at home that morning, I record the mileage for that trip and claim a deduction. For me it is 50 miles between home and the ER, and worth the claim.

How to Turn Non-Deductible Commuting Mileage Into A Deductible Business Expense — Business Management Daily: Free Reports on Human Resources, Employment Law, Office Management, Office Communication, Office Technology and Small Business Tax Business

CoachMB

Can only claim it if I'm paying for it surely? I don't pay anything where I'm living, so can't real write off an expense that has no expense to me surely? If I was paying I would claim it.

Guindalf

Where are you getting this stuff from??? A home office is a dedicated space used for work and can be the corner of your living room where your computer is placed! There's NO rule that says you have to PAY anyone anything because if it's your home, effectively you're paying yourself for the use of it!

CoachMB

I was under the assumption that I would be able to right it off as an expense connected with my job. If there's nothing paid for it, somebody provides me a place to live and I work from there... then it's not an expense surely?

I realize I may be totally wrong.. hope so in fact! That's just how I viewed it.

Additional question. Last year, I didn't track my mileage. Can I retrospectively put together a spreadsheet of my movements? I know roughly what I do each day at various times of year. I suspect I can't for 2016 at this point but will do so going forward.

Guindalf

Obviously you can't claim for the office space if you're not paying for it, but that doesn't mean it can't be your base office for travel purposes.

Sure, you can retrospectively claim mileage for 2016. Just be prepared to justify it if you're audited.

CoachMB

So to clarify..

You're suggesting I CANNOT claim a deduction for the 'home office' because It's not actually an expense to me since I pay nothing for it.

I CAN count that as the base of my operations? So effectively any time I leave home for something work related I could claim business mileage?

So much mixed info. Posted this online in a couple of places, and asked a couple of different people and pretty much had different answers every time.

When you say I can claim for 2016 but need to be able to back it up.. what would this entail exactly? Would a retrospectively built log of my work movements suffice?

morpeth

You can claim a deduction for home office, except since there is no expense there is nothing to deduct.

You can claim deduction for mileage for business purposes except for commuting. The only issue is when you go to sports fields is this regularly enough to qualify as your "office" or not ? If not then deductible, if yes then not deductible. Are the fields always the same ? Or do they change during the year ?

CoachMB

Generally the same.. usually the same town at least, with fairly minimal distance between fields. But can vary at times of year - for example right now as its winter I'm mostly in some of the school gyms.. so it's a different location technically, but my drive isn't really any different. Other times I do go somewhere completely different as a one off. My father in law also made a point that if you do go somewhere different, you can't deduct the whole lot.. you would have to minus your regular commuting distance. So say I drive 10 miles usually, but one day I have to do 12... then it's only the 2 I can deduct. Is that right?

GeoffM

Personally I would claim, even if the amount claimed was zero. It's not just utilities/mortgage/rent(?) that can be claimed but improvements. Probably you won't make improvements if it's loaned to you. Anyway, it's a few fields to fill in, simples, especially with TurboTax or similar.

The other thing is you commute from your home office (to elsewhere)... which doesn't exist on your tax form if you don't claim one... odd perhaps?