- Hey there, my name's Alexis Hartford.
I'm a tax expert here at TurboTax.
So TurboTax is partnered with Uber
to provide drivers like yourself
an easy and educational way
to file taxes online
from the comfort of your own home
or while you're out and about in-between rides.
So in today's webinar what I want to cover
is everybody's favorite topic,
tax write-offs.
Now being a rideshare driver means
you can write off a slew of things
and I'll get into those in a little bit.
So first we're gonna talk
about the tax write-offs.
then I want to show you a little bit
about how TurboTax works
and how easy it is to put
your expenses into the program.
And then at the end I'm gonna leave time
for any questions that you folks may have.
So let's get started.
Being self-employed comes with a huge perk
and those are your tax write-offs.
One amazing thing about TurboTax
is that we understand what industry you're in,
you're in the rideshare industry,
and we actually personalize our experience
based on the type of business that you do,
which is rideshare driving.
So the biggest deduction
that a rideshare driver has is their car.
So, as far as taking a car as an expense,
it all starts with your mileage.
The IRS requires that you keep great track
of all of the miles that you drove
throughout the year.
This includes your business miles
and your non-business miles as well.
But what happens if you rideshare drive
for multiple companies?
Uber is not gonna keep track of that for you.
So what you want to do is you want to have
a way to track all of your miles
outside of the Uber app
if you're doing rideshare for other jobs.
So this could mean that you should install
maybe an outside app
such as QuickBooks Self-Employed
does a great job of tracking your miles.
Therefore, you'll have all of your miles
tracked in one place.
So we need to track our business miles
and our personal miles.
And the reason that we do this
is because we want to know
what business percentage
that you were driving with Uber.
So for example, if you have
50,000 miles all throughout the year
for business and personal
and let's just say you drove 25,000 with Uber,
that means it's 50% business use.
That number will come in handy later
when we actually put some expenses in.
So, as far as the vehicle deduction
there's two ways that you can actually take this.
You can do what's called standard miles
and that is a set rate by the IRS,
it's 54.5 cents a mile for 2018.
And you just take 54.5 cents a mile
and times that by your business miles
and that's your tax deduction.
You can also take what's called actual expenses.
Now, this is a little more complicated
because you need to keep track
of all of your gas,
all of the repairs, the maintenance.
Did you get new tires on your car?
How about some oil changes?
So you want to keep track
of all of those business expenses
and add all of them up at the end of the year.
And then you want to look and see
which one is higher.
So if you otherwise qualify
you're gonna want to take whichever one
provides the largest deduction.
You're not gonna have to figure that out.
We're gonna figure it out for you
through TurboTax.
I'm gonna show you exactly
how to do that in a few minutes.
So what happens if you don't own your car?
What if you're participating
in the Uber exchange program?
You're gonna be able to write off
a business portion of that as well.
You'll find that expense amount
on your 2018 tax summary.
Your 2018 tax summary also contains
multiple deductions that you can also write off.
Some things that are outside
of your 2018 tax summary
are your cell phone bill.
Some refreshments.
How about water for your passengers?
What about your music subscription
that you use to play in your car
while you're driving around?
Car seat covers.
How about an air freshener?
We're gonna walk through the product right now
and I'm gonna show you how to enter in
all of this information.
Okay, so let's get started
and get into the product.
So you want to go to your Uber
Partner Earnings dashboard
and you want to select Tax Information at the top.
Now, this is an important way to get inside TurboTax
because you don't want to go to TurboTax.com directly
because your discount's not gonna be applied.
So go ahead and select Tax Information
and right here you're gonna see an offer,
File for Free.
Go ahead and click the Start for Free button.
After you click Start for Free,
you're gonna come to this page
where you're gonna see two offerings.
The first offering is TurboTax Self-Employed.
That's the do-it-yourself program
where TurboTax walks you through screen by screen
asking you extremely simple questions
which I'll demonstrate in a minute.
So our second offering that we have available
is TurboTax Live.
This is if you want a little extra assistance
with your tax return.
You can contact a tax pro like myself
to actually review and answer any questions
that you have about your return.
We're offering this to Uber driver partners
for half price so it's only $85.
We're gonna go ahead and get started
with the TurboTax Self-Employed program for free
because you can always upgrade along the way
if you feel like you need
that little extra assistance.
So if you've used our product in the past
what you want to do is select Sign In
and just put your username and password in there
and we'll transfer all of the information
that you have from last year
into this year's program.
If you're new to TurboTax, welcome
and just go ahead and say Start for Free,
and then create an account profile
with your username and password.
So once you get into the TurboTax program,
we're gonna walk you through very simple questions
to get your tax return set up.
We're gonna ask for your name, your birthdate,
where you live, what your mailing address is.
And then you're gonna get to the self-employed
income expenses section.
So, in the previous webinar, I talked about
how to enter in some income
and set up your business.
In this webinar, we're gonna focus
on those tax write-offs.
So because you told TurboTax
that you're a rideshare driver previously,
it's gonna go ahead and personalize
this entire write-off experience for you
based on the industry that you're in,
which is rideshare driving.
So let's take a look at some of the common expenses.
So vehicle.
This is the biggest deduction
that you're probably gonna have.
You're gonna go ahead and enter in
your car and equipment rental here.
We've got communications.
This is where you're gonna enter in
your business portion of your cell phone.
We have supplies, such as the refreshments
for your passengers.
If you have to pay any city taxes,
you're gonna go ahead
and enter those in down here.
And then we have all of those Uber operational costs
that are reported out in your 2018 tax summary.
So you'll enter those
under Other miscellaneous expenses.
So, why don't we go ahead
and walk through the Vehicle flow,
and I'm gonna show you how easy it is
to put in your vehicle.
So go ahead and select Vehicle.
And then it's gonna ask you if you used
a car for your rideshare driving work.
Well, of course you did.
So go ahead and say Yes there.
And then we'll put in what type
make and model car you have,
and what type of vehicle it is.
And when did you start using this for work?
We're gonna say that we did it in 2017.
And we'll just go ahead and continue.
So, do you own the vehicle, are you leasing it?
Select whichever one pertains to you.
And then, was it available
for personal use as well?
So do you have multiple cars?
If you don't, then this vehicle was
available for personal use.
Did you keep track of the miles
that you drove for rideshare work?
This is a very important question
and I'm hoping that everybody
is gonna select Yes on this one
because you are required to keep track
of all of the miles that you drive for rideshare work,
whether or not it's on a mileage tracking app
like QuickBooks Self-Employed.
Maybe you use a spreadsheet at home.
Maybe you just use a pen and paper.
However you feel most comfortable
tracking your miles, it doesn't matter.
The most important thing to remember
is that you have to track your miles.
So yes, I tracked my work miles.
Alright, and here we go about entering your miles.
So earlier I told you we needed all miles,
business and personal,
and we also need just business.
This is where this is gonna come into play.
So enter the total miles
that you drove for any reason.
This includes personal, work, commuting miles.
So let's go ahead and put in here
about 25,000 miles.
The second entry is where you enter
your business miles
that you've been tracking all year long.
So go ahead and put in your business miles
into this box.
Okay, let's move ahead.
We're gonna answer a couple more questions
about our car.
And then it's gonna ask you if you took
the standard mileage deduction last year.
This is a pretty important question.
If you transferred in your tax return from last year,
we're gonna have that answer for you.
If you didn't use TurboTax last year, that's okay.
Just go ahead and click on this button
that says Where can I find this info?
And it's gonna give you very clear instructions
on where to go in your last year's tax return
to look for it.
So we're gonna go ahead and say Yes,
I took the standard mileage deduction
in this example.
Okay, so here we are.
It shows us that we have a $3200 tax deduction
just for our miles.
We haven't even put in any other expenses
so this is great.
So you have the option of sticking
with the standard mileage right now.
Most rideshare drivers just go ahead
with the standard deduction.
It's a lot less record keeping.
You don't actually have
to keep receipts for all of the gas
and the oil changes and the repairs
you've made to your car.
If you have kept all of those items
and you want to see exactly how you compare
from standard versus actual,
go ahead down this flow
and you can enter in all of your actual expenses,
and TurboTax is gonna tell you
exactly which one is gonna be
more beneficial for you.
But in my example today, we're gonna go ahead
and stick with the standard mileage deduction
because $3200 is a great write-off.
So go ahead and select Continue.
Here we are with a couple more questions
about that vehicle.
We're gonna ask about parking fees, tolls.
Did you pay any car registration fees?
You're able to deduct a portion of that as well.
Maybe you have a loan on your car.
You can deduct the business portion of the interest
that you paid on that car loan.
Remember, if you need any help
on how to figure out these items,
just go ahead and click on the Learn more.
Okay, so we're all done with our vehicle expenses.
So let's go and look at what other types
of expenses rideshare drivers like yourself
could have as well.
Just click this button Add expenses for work.
Here are some other common expenses
that rideshare drivers have.
Communications, that's a huge one.
So everybody needs their cell phone
in order to drive with Uber.
What about supplies?
Did you have cell phone accessories
like did you buy chargers for your car?
What about car seat covers
to protect your car?
Your other big tax write-off
is gonna be under here,
under Other miscellaneous expenses.
So you want to go ahead and pull out
your 2018 tax summary from Uber.
This is where you're going to see
most of your expenses related to Uber.
You're gonna see Uber service fees down here,
you're gonna see booking fees,
airport fees, city fees.
These are all tax deductible items.
You want to write all of those off.
So this is where you're gonna put them in
under Other miscellaneous expenses.
When you get into the Other miscellaneous expense section,
it's gonna guide you up here
for exactly what you can write off.
So just make sure that you're matching
these words right here
with what's on your 2018 tax summary.
So if you have Uber service fees,
go ahead and put those guys right in over here.
You can add another row.
Let's say you have a music subscription.
To Spotify.
Add that guy in over here as well.
So after you're done entering all of your expenses
just come out to your rideshare driving info,
make sure everything looks correct.
We have your income, we have all of your expenses.
You're gonna hit Done and you're good to go.
It's as easy as that.
So that wraps up the product demo.
Now it's time for viewer questions.
Okay, so now it's time to take some questions
from you guys about your expenses.
I'm gonna turn it over to Molly.
- Alright, first up.
I forgot to track my mileage.
What should I do?
- Okay, so first of all don't freak out
if you didn't track your miles.
What you want to do is stop what you're doing
and start tracking them right now.
And there's plenty of apps out there.
QuickBooks Self-Employed has a great one
for tracking your miles.
So, let's just say that you started
preparing your taxes and it's asking for miles
and you're like, "Whoops, forgot to track
"my miles for last year."
There's a couple of different ways
that you can actually handle this.
You can go to your 2018 tax summary.
Uber is gonna give you a set of miles there.
So you can go ahead and use those miles.
That would be the very, very conservative approach.
The better approach would be for you
to try to reconstruct exactly
how much you drove last year.
Now, you're gonna have a rider history
so that you can go back through
and figure out exactly how many miles
you rode for each day.
And then just extrapolate that out
throughout the year.
So that's probably the safer bet as well.
The last thing you want to do
is try to make up any miles.
So just make sure that you actually have proof
of what you're doing to back it up
just in case a question ever comes from the IRS.
- You mention standard mileage
and actual expenses.
How do I know which auto deduction option
is best for me?
So in product we actually have
a really cook feature that will predict
which one is better.
You just have to answer
a couple of simple questions
and then that way you can decide
if it's worth tallying up
all your receipts or not.
Okay.
I have instant pay charges on my statement
so I don't have to wait to get paid.
Can I deduct that?
- So, as far as your instant pay goes,
that's gonna be listed out
on your 2018 Uber tax summary
and yes, you can go ahead
and write those off as an expense.
- Alright, next up.
I rented a car for a few months.
Can I claim standard mileage?
- So, as far as taking the standard mileage,
no, you can't do that
because you don't actually own the car.
But I'm gonna show you where you can actually
write off some of those car rental expenses.
So you want to scroll down past Vehicle
because this Vehicle section
is if you actually own the car.
You want to look down here
under Car and equipment rental.
So go ahead and select that,
hit Continue,
and then in this section right here
you can put in the expenses that you paid
for the business portion of the rental.
Now, you're gonna find that amount
on your 2018 tax summary
that Uber provides for you.
Another perk about actually renting a car
is that you can write off the gas
that you paid for the business portion
of this rental as well.
So just make sure that you have
all those gas receipts, total them up,
take the business use portion
and enter them here.
- Yep, and in order to get the business use
make sure you're keeping track
of all your personal trips and mileage
so that you can easily calculate it.
I had to pay for a car inspection
and background check
so that I can drive with Uber.
Are these deductible on my tax return?
- Yes.
Absolutely those are deductible.
You just want to go down
into the miscellaneous expense section
and put your background check information there.
Let's just say you had to get thumbprint
so you put that information there also.
That's a good question.
- Okay, here's a good one.
What if I took actual expenses
on my 2017 tax return?
Can I claim standard mileage for this tax year?
Unfortunately not.
If you chose actual expenses in your first year,
you're stuck with that method
as long as you use that vehicle.
So again, there's the estimator tool
in the product that will tell you
which is better and you can make
the decision at that point.
Okay.
I just bought a new car and I paid a lot
in sales tax because I live in California.
Can I write that off?
- Okay, so that's a little bit
trickier of a question.
So the question about sales tax.
Earlier I was talking about
you can either take standard mileage,
which is that 54.5 cents a mile for 2018,
or you can take your actual expenses,
which is your gas, your tires, your maintenance,
all of those items added up,
and then you take the business use portion.
So the sales tax fits
into that actual expense category.
It's actually gonna be added
to the cost of your car and then depreciated
over a certain period of time.
So TurboTax walks you through that flow
and you'll be able to enter your sales tax
in the actual expenses flow.
- Alright.
We just have the time for a few more questions.
I heard there are increased
auto depreciation deductions for 2018.
That is true.
Tax Cuts and Jobs Act actually has
expense up to 18,000
if you use your car 100% for business.
So keep in mind, the more you drive it personally
the less your deduction will be
but that is the maximum
that you could potentially take.
- Molly, that actually brings up a good point too,
which I wanted to talk about.
With the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act
they also instantiated
this 20% business deduction
that everybody is talking about.
So what that is, it's a 20% deduction
off of your actual taxable income.
So if you otherwise qualify,
and I'm not gonna get into it right now
because it's a very complex tax topic,
but if your income's within a certain range,
you don't have employees, et cetera,
you will be able to qualify
for that 20% deduction
so that's a great question.
- It's more money in your pocket.
Yeah.
Alright, last one.
I have a supplemental insurance policy
required for my rideshare driving gig.
Is that deductible?
- Okay.
So your supplemental insurance policy.
A lot of rideshare companies,
actually I think all of them,
require supplemental policies if you actually
have passengers driving in your car.
So since you only have that supplemental policy
because you're a rideshare driver,
yes, go ahead and write off that entire amount.
- Alright, that about sums it up.
- We have no more time for questions
but if I didn't get to yours,
or if you have any additional questions,
go ahead and put it in the channel.
And thank you so much for joining us today.