How to claim mileage for an employed sales person – WAY confused by the IRS explanation!?

I am an employee of a greeting card company. I am paid salary, not commission. I am given a $400 a month expense check to cover office supplies, gas, phone, etc. However, with the cost of gas, this is not covering even gas. I am tempted to claim business mileage, however, I’m not sure I even can as, technically, I am given money for gas. My tax lady said that it wouldn’t be worth it – as my deductions would have to be more than $10,600 (my deduction for being married on my federal taxes). I’m so confused. I’m pretty sure that I should be able to keep a log and claim business mileage, but I would hate to do all that work only to find out I don’t qualify. Can anyone help me by putting this in laymans terms? Thanks a bunch!

An employee can deduct unreimbursed business expenses. However, the amount of unrembursed business expenses has to be greater than 2% of your income. You can include mileage as part of your expenses at 50.5 cents per mile.

Example: You earn $50,000, so 2% of this is $1,000. Your expenses are $500 a month, and you are reimbursed $400 a month. Your unreimbursed expenses are $100 a month. Your unreimbursed expenses are $1,200 for the year. However, you can deduct only $200, the excess of 2% of your AGI, on Schedule A.

However, the total Schedule A deductions must be greater than $10,700 to give you any tax benefit.

So, your tax lady was correct, unless you have lots of other deductible expenses like home mortgage, state income taxes, or medical expenses, your unreimbursed business expenses are not going to benefit you.

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Table 1. Nonfarm sole proprietorships: business receipts, selected deductions, payroll, and net income, by industrial sectors, tax year 2006.(Sole Proprietorship … from: Statistics of Income. SOI Bulletin $9.95 This digital document is an article from Statistics of Income. SOI Bulletin, published by U.S. Government Printing Office on September 22, 2008. The length of the article is 11476 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.Citation DetailsTitle: Tab…