Can I claim mileage for traveling to a contract position?
"The short answer is yes you can, but you have to make sure you do it correctly.  If you are employed by a tech company that does contract work at a separate location and you don't get reimbursed by your employer for travel expenses, you can claim the mileage between your home and location B as a business expense, but there's a catch - you have to subtract the mileage between your home and location A (your employer). So if it's 20 miles from your house to your employer (location A), and 30 miles from your house to the business you're contracting at (location B), you can only claim 10 miles each way (so 20 miles total). Obviously if the distance to location B is closer than your employer (location A), you're out of luck. You will have to itemize to take this deduction, by filling out a Schedule A for itemized deductions and Form 2106 to calculate how much of a deduction for travel expenses you can take. Google ""should i itemize"", if you're unsure whether to take the Standard Deduction or Itemize. Sources:"
"This arrangement is a scam to get around certain tax and benefits laws, both State and Federal. I know they can't get away with this with a person-as-contractor, but this ""he's not a contractor, he's a business owner"" may move it into a gray area. (I used to know this stuff cold, but I've been retired for a while.) The fact that they asked you to do this is at all is, IMNSHO, a Red Flag®. They think that this way they won't be paying 1/2 your FICA, your Workman's Comp, health insurance, overtime, sick leave or vacation time ... you will. A somewhat simplistic rule of thumb for setting contracting rates is to take your targeted annual salary as a full-time, full-benefits employee and double it. So $50,000 becomes $100,000 a year; $25/hour becomes $50/hour. You can tell them that driving to their workplace from your company's location is now a ""site visit"" and charge them your hourly rate for the one-way commute time. You could also tell them that your company charges 150% for hours worked over 40 hours/week, plus 150% on Saturdays and 200% on Sundays. Your company may also have a minimum 30 days notice of termination with a penalty kicker. Get it all in writing and signed by someone who has the authority to sign it. Also, Get A Lawyer. The most expensive contracts I've ever signed were ones I thought I was smart enough to draw up myself." I'd approach the lender that you're getting the lease from, but be prepared for them either saying 'no' to putting the lease into the name of an LLC without any proven track record (because it hasn't been around for a while) or require you to sign a personal guarantee, which partially defeats the purpose of putting the car lease into the LLC. I'd also talk to an accountant to see if you can't just charge the business the mileage on your vehicle as that might be the simplest solution, especially if the lender gets stroppy. Of course the mileage rate might not cover the expense for the lease as that one is designed to cover the steepest part of the depreciation curve. Does your LLC generate the revenue needed so it can take on the lease in the first place? If it's a new business you might not need or want the drain on your finances that a lease can be. As a nonresident sole proprietor or partnership You are not a sole proprietor or a member of a legal partnership. You are an employee for a corporation.  Does the nature of your work require you to be present in New York regularly? If you are in New York for personal reasons, you are simply telecommuting. You must pay taxes personally for your W-2 income, but your business entity never moved from Wyoming. If this were not true, companies would have to pay corporate income tax to every state in which they have a telecommuter. For example, I live in Florida but telecommute to a company in Michigan. Does my employer pay Florida business tax? Of course not. Your business would only owe New York if the nature of the business requires a consistent and regular business presence in New York, such as maintaining an office for a portion of every year so clients could see you. I contacted Stephen Fishman, J.D., the author of Home Business Tax Deductions, to let him know that this question was missing from his book. He was kind enough to send a reply. My original phrasing of the question: If your car is used for both business and personal use, and you deduct via the actual expense method, do trips to the mechanic, gas station, and auto parts store to service or repair the car count as business miles, personal miles, or part-business-part-personal miles? What about driving the newly-purchased car home from the dealership? And his response: Good question. I can find nothing about this in IRS publication or elsewhere. However, common sense would tell us that the cost of driving to make car repairs should be deductible. If you use your car for business, it is a business expense, just like transporting any other piece of business equipment for repairs is a business expense. This should be so whether you use the standard mileage rate or actual expense method. You should probably reduce the amount of your deduction by the percentage of personal use of the car during the year. The same goes for driving a car home from the dealer. I believe moving reimbursement has to be counted as income no matter when you get it. I'd just put it under miscellaneous income with an explanation. "I'm not sure what you mean by ""writing off your time,"" but to answer your questions: Remember that, essentially, you are a salaried employee of a corporation.  So if you are spending time at your job, even if you are not billing anything to a client, you are earning your salary. If there are costs involved with these activities (maybe class fees, a book purchase, or travel expenses), the corporation should be paying the costs as business expenses.  However, the logistics of this, whether the corporation writes a business check to the vendor directly, or you put the expenses on a personal credit card and are reimbursed with an expense check from the corporation, don't matter.  Your accountant can show you the right way to do this." "It will count as income, and you can deduct as much of your moving expenses as allowed by tax laws.   If you also count it as a reimbursement, then you're double-taxed - once for the income and again by reducing your moving deduction. The ""reimbursement"" amount is designed for when you get literally reimbursed for exact expenses directly, bypassing the tax on that compensation. The only difference will be that you (and your employer) pay FICA and medicare on the ""relocation bonus"" that you wouldn't if you were reimbursed.  Also, with a reimbursement you are not incentivized to minimize the cost of your relocation (since it's not your money you're spending).  With a bonus, since you get to keep whatever is left over, you have a vested interest in keeping your expenses down." "For example, for my employer I received a signing bonus, and a   ""relocation lump sum"" separate from that signing bonus. The relocation   lump sum is taxed and will appear as income on my W-2, and I can spend   it on anything I want. That said, should the relocation lump sum count   towards the entry quoted above in Form 3903, or would it be considered   the same as any other bonus; thus allowing me to take a full deduction   for all of my deductible travel expenses? The signing bonus and relocation lump sum will appear as regular income on your W-2. You can think of the relocation bonus as something to cover the pain and suffering the cost of moving, without needing to send in receipts. Lets assume that you meet the distance and time tests, so there is potential to save money on your taxes. Lets also put your actual moving expenses as $2500. If you have valid moving expenses the IRS will allow you to use them to reduce your AGI. So now you can reduce your AGI by the $2500.  Enter the total amount your employer paid you for the expenses listed   on lines 1 and 2 that is not included in box 1 of your Form W-2   (wages). This amount should be shown in box 12 of your Form W-2 with   code P. My question is: what exact payments from your employer should be   entered here? I realize that you can just write the number you get in   box 12 with code P on your W-2, but I'm curious how they come up with   this number. In some cases the company will reimburse you your moving expenses up to a maximum of $x. For example a maximum of $1000 That means you submit receipts for those expenses and they give you a check or add it to your next paycheck. The check will either be for the amount on your receipts or the maximum amount, whichever is smaller. In this situation with actual expenses of $2500 and a reimbursement of $1000 you can reduce your AGI by $1500." As has been mentioned, it's largely up to the landlord. I'm in Texas, USA, and my landlord's payment service permits it, but they charge an exorbitant fee of 22%  plus 0.50 in order to do so. My rent is $895/month. If I chose to use a credit card, I pay $1092.40. The miles aren't worth that kind of money. As a general rule, you must choose between a mileage deduction or an actual expenses deduction.  The idea is that the mileage deduction is supposed to cover all costs of using the car.  Exceptions include parking fees and tolls, which can be deducted separately under either method.  You explicitly cannot deduct insurance costs if you claim a mileage deduction.   Separately, you probably won't be able to deduct the deductible for your car as a casualty loss.  You first subtract $100 from the deductible and then divide it by your Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) from your tax return.  If your deductible is over 10% of your AGI, you can deduct it.   Note that even with a $1500 deductible, you won't be able to deduct anything if you made more than $14,000 for the year.  For most people, the insurance deductible just isn't large enough relative to income to be tax deductible.   Source "Also within Germany the tax offices usually determine which tax office is responsible for you by asking where you were more than 180 days of the year (if e.g. you have a second flat where you work). That's a default value, though: in my experience you can ask to be handled by another tax office. E.g. I hand my tax declaration to my ""home"" tax office (where also my freelancing adress is), even though my day-job is 300 km away.  So if you work mostly from Poland and just visit the German customer a few times, you are fine anyways. Difficulties start if you move to Germany to do the work at your customer's place. I'm going to assume that this is the situation as otherwise I don't think the question would have come up.  Close by the link you provided is a kind of FAQ on this EU regulation About the question of permanent vs. temporary they say: The temporary nature of the service is assessed on a case-by-case basis.  Here's my German-Italian experience with this. Background: I had a work contract plus contracts for services and I moved for a while to Italy. Taxes and social insurance on the Italian contracts had to be paid to Italy. Including tax on the contract for services. Due to the German-Italian tax treaty, there is no double taxation. Same for Poland: this is part of EU contracts. By the way: The temporary time frame for Italy seemed to be 3 months, then I had to provide an Italian residence etc. and was registered in the Italian health care etc. system. Due to the German-Italian tax treaty, there is no double taxation. Same for Poland: this is part of EU contracts. Besides that, the German tax office nevertheless decided that my ""primary center of life"" stayed in Germany. So everything but the stuff related to the Italian contracts (which would probably have counted as normal work contracts in Germany, though they is no exact equivalent to those contract types) was handled by the German tax office. I think this is the relevant part for your question (or: argumentation with the German tax office) of temporary vs. permanent residence.  Here are some points they asked: There is one point you absolutely need to know about the German social insurance law: Scheinselbständigkeit (pretended self-employment). Scheinselbständigkeit means contracts that claim to be service contracts with a self-employed provider who is doing the work in a way that is typical for employees. This law closes a loophole so employer + employee cannot avoid paying income tax and social insurance fees (pension  contributions and unemployment insurance on both sides - health insurance would have to be paid in full by the self-employed instead of partially by the employer. Employer also avoids accident insurance, and several regulations from labour law are avoided as well). Legally, this is a form of black labour which means that the employer commits a criminal offense and is liable basically for all those fees.  There is a list of criteria that count towards Scheinselbständigkeit. Particularly relevant for you could be" "I recently went full time self employed after doing photography on the side for several years.  One of the types I do is real estate photography, but it's tough doing it alone so I signed up to freelance with a company that basically brokers out jobs in the area.  They cover close to 70% of the market share so they're big.  I now get ten times the work I used to, for less money but the volume and the fact I no longer edit make up for it. However, they made me sign a non compete that says I cannot shoot real estate photography for two years after I leave them.  I've always thought that I'd really like to see how enforceable that is since I did real estate for two years before them, they didn't teach me anything new, so what gives them the right to tell me I can't continue doing what I already did just because I'm no longer with them?  What kind of bullshit, un-American crap is that?  The jokes on them, though, as they apparently don't read their own stuff very well. They told me I'd be allowed to still shoot independently with the agents I worked with prior to freelancing for them if I just wrote them in at the bottom of the non compete so they'd have it for their records. So I did; I specifically named the the big offices I wanted to keep working with (that didn't already use the company I was going to be working with) and also put another line that said ""and all current, former, and future clients of my business, xyzabc photography"" and they signed off on it and returned a copy to me.   Still, the fact that they think they have the right to limit me from doing a career that I already did and received no training from them is so asinine and ridiculous." Not if the bonuses are also on a grid. At my work it's the same way -- you get paid a certain amount for every year of tenure you have at the company (outside experience generally doesn't count) and then the bonus varies depending on how your performance rating goes. Everybody knows what the bonus levels are. "&gt; The main reason you see so many people in first class is because they earn miles for themselves  Yup.  My private company allows us to use our own milage accounts when booking company travel, so we earn the miles.  I also make heavy use of my Chase sapphire card, that has a 1:1 transfer between card-miles and most airline programs' miles.    While I don't travel _often_ for my job, I'm usually on a plane every couple months, at least, and most of the time, I can upgrade to first/business, or at least the ""special cattle"" rows of coach on my own dime (or miles)." "Anything is negotiable.  Clearly in the current draft of the contract the company isn't going to calculate or withhold taxes on your behalf - that is your responsibility. But if you want to calculate taxes yourself, and break out the fees you are receiving into several ""buckets"" on the invoice, the company might agree (they might have to run it past their legal department first). I don't see how that helps anything - it just divides the single fee into two pieces with the same overall total. As @mhoran_psprep points out, it appears that the company expects you to cover your expenses from within your charges. Thus, it's up to you to decide the appropriate fees to charge, and you are assuming the risk that you have estimated your expenses incorrectly. If you want the company to pay you a fee, plus reimburse your expenses, you will need to craft that into the contract. It's not clear what kind of expenses you need to be covered, and sometimes companies will not agree to them. For specific tax rule questions applicable to your locale, you should consult your tax adviser."