The IRS says you have to have “receipts” for your expenses. Your Mileage Log is your “receipt” for the 2-Miles-Makes-a-Dollar (to avoid decimal points) Standard Mileage or “Exact” auto expense deduction. It used to be a real PITA. Today there are cell phone apps that do it for you with virtually no effort.
When you actually track all your business miles, you’ll probably find out that you drive a lot more, and have a bigger deduction, than you thought and that through a bit of laziness you’ve been costing yourself every year.
Either way, NO LOG, NO DEDUCTION.
