Answers

Straight answers on mileage, deductions and what gig driving actually pays. Every factual claim links to the IRS page it came from, so you can check it rather than trust us.

By platform

Everything in this section

• The 1099-K threshold for 2026 — The 1099-K threshold reverted to $20,000 and 200+ transactions under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. What that means if you drive for multiple platfor
• 1099-NEC vs 1099-K for gig drivers — Which form a platform sends, why the numbers on them may not match what you actually received, and why your reporting obligation does not depend on ge
• 1099-NEC vs. 1099-K for gig drivers — Which form you get depends on how the platform pays you, not on whether you're a contractor. The IRS rule that decides it, what DoorDash and Uber actu
• What's your break-even hourly rate for gig driving? — A one-time calculation that gives you a standing personal floor — your true vehicle cost plus your time's value, as a single dollar-per-hour number to
• Your car was totaled mid-year — what happens to your deduction? — Miles you already drove before a crash or theft stay deductible. You may also claim a casualty loss on the car itself, figured on what's left of its b
• Car washes and cleaning: deductible, or already covered? — The answer depends entirely on which method you chose for the vehicle, and most drivers do not know which one they are on. Where washes, detailing, wa
• The commuting rule, and which gig trips are personal — Commuting is not deductible. For gig drivers with no fixed workplace the analysis is different but not automatically favourable. What the rules say, w
• Commuting vs. business miles for gig drivers — The commuting rule is simple in theory and genuinely hard in practice for gig work. What the IRS actually says, and where the real gray area sits.
• Cost per mile if you drive an EV — Electricity is cheaper than petrol per mile, but that is one line of four. Tyres, depreciation, charging-speed costs and the standard mileage rate all
• CPA or do-it-yourself — deciding as a gig driver — What a CPA actually costs for a Schedule C return, what software costs instead, and the specific situations where paying for help is worth it versus o
• Are "dead miles" between gig offers deductible? — Miles driven between an accepted job and your next one are business miles. Miles driven while just online and hoping are a genuinely contested questio
• Your phone: what is deductible, and how to defend the percentage — The phone is the second-largest deduction after mileage for most drivers, and the one most often claimed with a number nobody can justify. How to esta
• Does your gig app's mileage total match your deduction? — What Uber's, Lyft's, DoorDash's, Instacart's, and Amazon Flex's own mileage totals actually include, checked against each platform's own help center —
• The end-of-year checklist: nine things to do before 31 December — Most of what makes a mileage deduction defensible has to happen before the year ends. The odometer photo, the gaps to reconstruct, the split-rate tota
• EV and hybrid mileage rate 2026: no separate rate exists — The IRS standard mileage rate is the same 72.5¢/76¢ for every vehicle type in 2026 — gas, hybrid, or electric. What that means for EV and hybrid gig d
• The first and last trip of the day — The most argued-about question in gig mileage. What the commuting rule actually says, the three fact patterns that change the answer, and how to keep
• Taxes in your first year of gig driving — what's different — No withholding, a safe-harbor rule that can mislead you, and (usually) no EIN needed. What actually changes in year one, sourced to the IRS.
• Grubhub mileage deduction in 2026 — What Grubhub's own mileage figure includes and excludes, the 2026 two-rate split at June 30, and how to keep a Grubhub mileage log that holds up. Sour
• Does a home office change what counts as commuting for gig drivers? — Publication 587's exact qualifying conditions for a home office, and what changes for your mileage log if you genuinely meet them — verified line by l
• Home office for gig drivers: the deduction, and what it does to the commuting rule — A qualifying home office changes which trips are deductible, not just how much overhead you can claim. The requirements, the trap, and why most driver
• How much should a gig driver set aside for taxes each quarter? — A worked example on real numbers: gross earnings, the mileage deduction, self-employment tax, and the commonly-cited 25-30% range — with the IRS works
• Starting a mileage log, today, in ten minutes — The four fields, the three ways to keep them, and the two habits that decide whether the log is worth anything in April. Written to be done now rather
• Is this offer actually worth taking? — The math behind accepting or declining a gig offer: pay minus real vehicle cost minus time, per mile and per hour. Uses AAA's own cost-per-mile data,
• Your January gig-driver tax checklist — Never filed gig taxes before, or dreading doing it again? The ten things to do in order in January, each linked to the full explainer if you need it.
• You bought out your lease — what happens to your deduction? — Buying out a leased car mid-term or at lease-end ends the lease lock-in, but Publication 463 doesn't spell out the transition. Here's what's settled a
• Leased vs. owned: the mileage deduction rule is different — A leased vehicle locks you into standard mileage for the whole lease term, including renewals, once you choose it. What that means for gig drivers dec
• Changed vehicles mid-year? How your deduction works — The standard mileage election is made per vehicle, not per year. What to track when you switch cars partway through 2026, with the split rate applied
• Can you deduct mileage if you drive a rental car for gig work? — The standard mileage rate requires you to own or lease the car, per IRS Topic 510. Here is where a rented gig vehicle's costs actually go instead, ver
• Two cars, one gig business: how the election works per vehicle — The standard mileage election is made per vehicle. Alternating between two or more cars for gig work in the same year means separate logs and separate
• Couriers, medical delivery and same-day work — Longer routes, contracted work and sometimes a different employment status. What counts, why the mileage share of earnings is higher here, and the que
• Mileage if you lease your car — Leasing changes which deduction method you can switch between and what happens at the end of the lease. What the standard mileage rate means for a lea
• Rentals, borrowed cars and rental programmes — The standard mileage rate assumes you bear the cost of the vehicle. When you are renting, borrowing or on a platform rental programme, the answer chan
• Missed a quarterly payment? Here's what actually happens — What the underpayment penalty is, how it's calculated per period, and why paying immediately — even late — still helps. Sourced to the IRS underpaymen
• Running two or three gig apps at once: one log, not three — The IRS doesn't care which app was open when you drove a mile. Why multi-apping needs one running mileage log instead of reconciling separate platform
• Multi-apping mileage and earnings — For tax, track total business miles and do not attribute per platform. For deciding which app to keep running, attribute everything. Two different que
• One car, two uses: how the split works — Almost every gig driver uses the same car for everything. What that means for the deduction, why total annual miles is the number nobody has, and what
• Parking, tolls and the other deductions — The standard mileage rate does not cover everything. What is deductible in addition to it, what is folded into it, and the expenses drivers most often
• Part-time gig driving with a W-2 job: how the taxes work — If you already have a paycheck withholding taxes, your gig income doesn't automatically get the same treatment. What that means for filing and for avo
• Quarterly estimated taxes for gig drivers — Nobody withholds tax from gig earnings. What estimated tax is, who has to pay it, why mileage tracking changes the number, and the mechanics of the fo
• Quarterly estimated taxes for gig drivers in 2026 — The four 2026 due dates, the safe-harbor math that tells you if you owe a penalty, and how mileage deductions change what you send each quarter. Sourc
• Roadie mileage deduction 2026: long hauls and the return trip — Roadie pays per delivery, often over long distances, but the drive back typically isn't compensated the same way — and it can still be deductible. The
• Two drivers, one car: keeping separate mileage logs — Couples and roommates who share a car and both drive gig platforms need two separate mileage records, not one shared total. How the IRS treats it and
• Self-employment tax for gig drivers, explained — 15.3% is not applied to your full net profit — it's 92.35% of it, and half of what you pay is itself deductible. The exact mechanics, sourced to the I
• Shipt mileage deduction 2026: shop-only vs. shop-and-deliver — Shipt's deductible mileage depends heavily on whether you deliver or just shop — a distinction that changes your deduction more than almost any other
• Shipt, Roadie and Gopuff mileage in 2026 — What each platform's own mileage figure covers, the 2026 two-rate split at June 30, and why long-haul Roadie routes change the arithmetic more than th
• What's actually included in the IRS standard mileage rate? — 72.5/76 cents per mile in 2026 already covers gas, maintenance, depreciation, and insurance — deducting them again is double-dipping. What you can sti
• State taxes: where the federal answer stops being the whole answer — The federal rules are the same everywhere. State treatment is not, and three specific differences change what a gig driver owes. What to check, and wh
• Tax software for gig drivers, compared — Whether TurboTax, FreeTaxUSA and H&R Block handle 1099 gig income, Schedule C and the mileage deduction well, and what each actually costs.
• Tips: what gets reported, what you owe, and the cash question — Tips are taxable income whether or not a platform reports them. How they appear on your forms, what happens with cash, and why tips change which order
• Uber Eats mileage deduction in 2026 — What Uber's on-trip mileage figure includes and excludes, the 2026 two-rate split at June 30, and why multi-apping complicates a delivery mileage log.
• Unpaid miles are still deductible — Driving to a pickup, repositioning between offers and heading out of a delivery zone are unpaid by the platform and generally deductible business mile
• Selling your car? Here's the depreciation catch — The standard mileage rate has depreciation built in — 35 cents of every 2026 mile. That quietly lowers your car's basis, which can turn a sale for les
• One car, business and personal: figuring your business-use % — Almost every gig driver uses the same car for driving and everyday life. How the IRS wants you to split business, commuting, and personal miles on Sch
• W-2 job plus gig driving: which miles count, and where the money goes on the return — Two kinds of income, two completely different rules for vehicle expenses. Which trips are deductible, why your employee miles usually are not, and the
• Does waiting time online count toward your mileage deduction? — Schedule C's vehicle section asks for miles driven, not hours online. Waiting time with the car parked doesn't create deductible mileage — but it stil
• What an IRS audit actually asks for, as a gig driver — Publication 463's own words on what counts as 'adequate records' for a mileage deduction, what a reconstructed log needs to survive review, and what d
• Deactivation, and the records you lose with it — Losing account access usually means losing the earnings history you would need at tax time. What goes, what to export now, and what to do if it has al
• What to keep, and for how long — The record that matters is the one you still have when someone asks. What to keep, the retention periods the IRS describes, and the backup failure tha
• Your 1099 is wrong — what to actually do — Platforms issue incorrect forms. Reporting a lower number than the form says is what triggers a notice, so the sequence matters. How to check, how to
• When does a car stop being worth using for gig work? — A decision framework for an aging vehicle's rising true cost per mile: when to keep driving it, when to replace it, and when to stop gig driving on it
• Where does actual expenses beat the standard mileage rate? — The numeric crossover point, worked with AAA's real cost-per-mile data against the 2026 IRS rate: low annual mileage tends to favor actual expenses, h