There exists an estimated 2 million rideshare drivers in the United States. Many of whom drive full-time. In most states, driving for Uber and Lyft are considered self-employment and drivers are considered as independent contractors and not employees. Therefore, it’s up to the driver to ensure that he pays taxes on his income to his home state and the federal government. While it is ideal to put aside about 15% one’s daily earnings so there’s no “shortage of funds” while filing one’s taxes, most drivers simply do not do that. They usually spend most of what they earn only to be left with a bill an at the end of the year to pay to his State and the IRS. Depending on one’s income this number can be thousands of dollars.
The good news is that as self-employed, you’re also entitled to a series of business-related deductions on your taxes. As the name suggests, “deductions” are amounts that you can deduct from your taxable income because they are oftgen business-related expenses. Aside from your repair costs, any yearly city-stickers or registration cost, you can also have you mileage deducted. However. to be able to do this properly, you must first know how many miles exclusively for your business you’ve added on the odometer. Mileage cannot include driving hours for personal purposes. You may write off $0.545 per mile that you’ve driven as a rideshare contractor.
There are various apps you can use to track your mileage properly. Some popular ones are Stride, Triplog, Everlance and MileIQ.
