I can’t begin to count the number of taxpayers who told me to ‘just put a number down’ or ‘oh, about X thousand miles, I guess’ when I would ask them how many business or commuting miles they drive. Many don’t bother keeping records, insisting that ‘I can prove that number if I have to.’ Translated to IRS-ese, “I’ll make up a log if and when I get audited, and not before.”

Ah, but that can be your biggest problem, as Willie & Thelma Moore found out today. You see, Willie worked for the City of Houston, and Thelma was a real estate agent (and oh, yes, they decided to 1) not use a tax preparer, and 2) represent themselves in court, both big mistakes). When the IRS audited them on their vehicle mileage, they produced a mileage log. Problem was, the log showed Willie driving to work on January 1st. Uh, Willie….January 1st was a government holiday. You were off that day. And Thelma showed daily round trips to her office – 15 miles a day. Uh, Thelma, it’s 13 miles one way to your office (never heard of Google maps, did you Thelma? Hmm. Might want to look into that). And 13 times 2 is 26, not 15. So you’re off by 11 miles a day. We won’t mention how you drove to Brazoria, Texas, and claimed 189 business miles, when the town is only 47 miles away, and a whopping 1.9 miles in size. The Tax Court surmised that you drove 95 miles around the subdivisions of Brazoria that day (seems they didn’t use Wikipedia). Let’s see…95 divided by 1.9…

The lesson: do the mileage log when you do the miles. Otherwise, you may look very, very foolish.