Can daily company vehicle mileage be logged a week at a time

If your vehicle is 100% business, that means you either work out of your home, or else leave the work car at work every night.  So be careful with the 100%.  But yes, unless you get a real jerk of an auditor, you'll be fine.  Most of them will pass on less documentation than that.

My LLC address is my home where I have an office. I run a 10,000 newspaper delivery company, and I only use the vehicle to run company business (I purchased it just for that) which consists mostly of delivering to particular area on a given day, but mostly delivering missed newspapers to subscribers homes, after they report one of my sub-contractors missed their delivery.

Based upon your response to ArchieLeach yes I would say you can maintain weekly records but make sure your records are accurate and IF there is any personal mileage it is documented

Question for the group:  Why wouldn't this be one of those first-call-of-the-day-is-commuting situations?

I start my day by checking email messages at home office, then driving to a production facility to make sure everyone has picked up deliveries, then I make a delivery to a college, return to my home office and drive to various addresses for redelivery. As far as 100% business use, I was not planning on automobile deprecation, as it is a 2000 Honda Civic that I paid $3800 for. I was just planning on taking mileage expense to cover fuel, insurance, repairs, eg..

You should have a second vehicle for personal use if indeed this vehicle is 100% business. It does not matter if you are planning to take actual expenses (including depreciation) or the standard mileage rate. You will need to be able to substantiate that there is no personal use.

I have 2 other vehicles for personal use. Is that uncommon for a business to have business only autos?

I'm wondering if that first drive to the production facility might be considered commuting.  Hopefully someone will answer besides me.

I have the same philosophy as you concerning a work vehicle.  Mine is a 1992 Mazda pickup that I bought about 10 years ago for $2000, and could sell for the same price today.  Meanwhile, Uncle Sam has repaid me for it several times over via the mileage deduction.  It's also nice to be able to drive it to see clients who think I charge too much.  ;-)

AL - I sure see your concern but there is a home office and VPcirc says he works in that home office first thing in the morning. Is the home office the main office? I am curious if the production facility is owned by VPcirc or not. Does VPcirc have an office at the production facility as well as the home office.

I think it depends on if there is a home office or not.  This is from pub 463

Example 2.

Your principal place of business is in your home. You can deduct the cost of round-trip transportation between your qualifying home office and your client's or customer's place of business.

Example 3.

You have no regular office, and you do not have an office in your home. In this case, the location of your first business contact is considered your office. Transportation expenses between your home and this first contact are nondeductible commuting expenses. Transportation expenses between your last business contact and your home are also nondeductible commuting expenses. Although you cannot deduct the costs of these trips, you can deduct the costs of going from one client or customer to another.

VPcirc does state that he has a home office but of course it matters if the home office is the main office.

Per publication 587 -

Principal Place of Business

You can have more than one business location, including your home, for a single trade or business. To qualify to deduct the expenses for the business use of your home under the principal place of business test, your home must be your principal place of business for that trade or business. To determine whether your home is your principal place of business, you must consider:

The relative importance of the activities performed at each place where you conduct business, and
The amount of time spent at each place where you conduct business.

Your home office will qualify as your principal place of business if you meet the following requirements.

You use it exclusively and regularly for administrative or management activities of your trade or business.
You have no other fixed location where you conduct substantial administrative or management activities of your trade or business.

Thanks Mimbreno.  Guess I need to wake up and pay closer attention to what I read.

I do have another office space at the production facility but spend very little time there, and only use it to look up information when necessary. I do not own the facility. I lease the office for $1 a month. I would say I average less than 2 hours per week in it for use. Conversely, I spend at least 5-6 hours working from my home office with everything from taking customer calls to performing all administrative duties including quickbooks, each day.

VPcirc - Sounds like you could argue this well in tax court.

...which is where it could likely end up, IMO.

Tax court? This is my first business in my life. I guess I am confused why this is so controversial.

I formed an LLC which is listed as my home address, my business license is my home address, my liability insurance is my home address. It is 2.5 miles to the production facility where they print the newspapers. I only go there to make sure all the carriers have picked up the papers. They leased me an office for a small fee, so I could have a place to put up a computer to look up customer information for carriers immediately on the internet. (I pay for my own internet) My home office deduction would likely be less than 5k a year on a gross profit of $155,000. This will cause me problems with the IRS when its less than 3% of the profit? I don't want a lawyer to protect 5k of deduction, that's absurd. My tax liability will be huge, as I have very few things to deduct.

VPcirc - I don't think you need to worry about tax court.

VPcirc - I agree with TAXOH - I think I was being a bit flippant in my response but it is an area that the irs has found taxpayers push the rules.

It's our slightly out-of-plumb way of saying that it's a close call or a gray area.

I feel due to the fact that he has an office in the Production Facility in addition to the Home Office the commute to the production facility would not be business mileage and stand up, just my opinion