Why the earnings screen is not your income
Four things sit between the number on the earnings screen and the money you keep. Three of them are invisible on that screen.
1. Vehicle cost. Every mile costs something in fuel, maintenance, tyres, insurance and depreciation. The 2026 IRS rate — 72.5 cents January to June, 76 cents July to December — is a reasonable proxy for a mixed-use vehicle. This is usually the largest deduction from the headline figure and it is never shown.
2. Self-employment tax. 15.3 percent on net self-employment earnings. Nothing is withheld, so it arrives as a bill.
3. Income tax, at your marginal rate, on the same profit.
4. Unpaid time. Waiting, repositioning, the drive that did not become an order. It does not reduce your income; it reduces your rate, which is the number you were actually trying to know.
Worked, roughly. A week showing $680 across 420 business miles and 31 hours:
- Vehicle cost at 76 cents: $319.20
- Net profit: $360.80
- Self-employment tax at 15.3 percent: about $55
- Income tax at, say, 12 percent on the rest: about $37
- Kept: roughly $269, for 31 hours. About $8.70 an hour.
The screen said $680. Neither number is dishonest. They are answers to different questions, and only one of them is the question you were asking.
Why the vehicle cost is the one that gets missed
It does not arrive as a bill. It arrives as a set of unrelated events months apart: a tyre, a service, a battery, a slightly worse trade-in value in three years.
So it feels free in the moment and is not. Forty miles of driving today costs about $30 at the current rate whether or not anything visibly happened to the car.
That is the entire reason a 14-mile delivery paying $12 is not a $12 delivery. At 76 cents a mile it carries $10.64 of vehicle cost, which leaves about a dollar and change plus tip for the time. What a delivery actually pays after miles.
The deduction is not a refund
Worth being precise, because the hope here costs people money.
The mileage deduction reduces taxable profit. It does not hand you 76 cents a mile. On $8,000 of mileage deduction, the saving is 8,000 multiplied by your combined marginal rate including self-employment tax, which is a meaningful amount and considerably less than $8,000.
And it does not reduce what the driving cost you. The car still consumed the fuel. The deduction reduces the tax on what is left. Why a deduction is not a refund.
Both things are true at once: track every mile, because the deduction is the largest lever most drivers have, and do not treat the deduction as income.
The number to use on the offer screen
Offer, minus the vehicle cost of the miles, divided by realistic time including waiting.
Two offers that look identical:
| Offer A | Offer B | |
|---|---|---|
| Pay | $14 | $14 |
| Miles | 6 | 19 |
| Vehicle cost at $0.76 | $4.56 | $14.44 |
| Left before tax | $9.44 | −$0.44 |
Offer B pays nothing. It is not a bad offer because it pays $14; it is a bad offer because of the distance, and the screen presents both the same way.
After a month of recording miles per offer you can estimate this from the drop address before accepting, which is the practical payoff of tracking and the one that arrives long before April. Multi-apping, and which platform actually pays.
What to do with this
Track every business mile, because it drives both the tax deduction and the real-rate calculation. What a log has to contain.
Set aside for tax as you earn, rather than discovering it in April. Quarterly estimated taxes. · A W-2 job and gig driving in the same year.
Know your own cost per mile if your vehicle is unusual, because the standard rate is an average and an older high-mileage car can exceed it in fuel and maintenance alone. Real cost per mile.
None of this is an argument against the work. It is an argument for making the decision on the real number, because the offers worth taking and the ones worth declining look identical until you subtract. Why gig pay is lower than it looks. · The calculator.
More in this section
About MileTruth
MileTruth is an iOS app from Baker Ventures LLC that tracks deductible business mileage for gig and delivery drivers and shows true net pay: what is left after mileage, fuel and self-employment tax, not what the platform showed you at acceptance. It is built for people driving several platforms in the same shift, and for anyone who needs a mileage log that would hold up if the IRS asked for it. The app is in development.
Everything on this site is free and needs no account: the mileage deduction calculator, the per-platform pay breakdowns, and the answers, each one linked to the IRS publication or platform document it came from. MileTruth publishes the source for every number, including the 2026 split-year standard mileage rate, because a deduction you cannot substantiate is not a deduction.
Questions and answers
Why is my actual gig income lower than the app says?
Because the earnings screen reports gross pay before vehicle cost, before self-employment tax and before income tax, and none of those is withheld. What you keep is what is left after all three, and the gap is larger than most drivers expect.
How much does driving actually cost per mile?
The IRS standard mileage rate is a reasonable proxy for a mixed-use vehicle, at 72.5 cents per mile for January through June 2026 and 76 cents for July through December. Your own cost may be higher or lower, and the rate exists because per-mile cost is otherwise hard to estimate.
What is self-employment tax and why does nobody mention it?
It is 15.3 percent on net self-employment earnings, covering Social Security and Medicare, and it applies on top of income tax. Nothing is withheld from gig earnings, so it arrives as a bill rather than as a deduction from each payment.
Does the mileage deduction give me the money back?
No. A deduction reduces taxable profit, so it saves you tax at your combined rate rather than returning the whole amount. It is still the largest lever most drivers have, and it does not reduce what the driving actually cost you.
What number should I use to decide whether an offer is worth taking?
Offer minus the vehicle cost of the miles, divided by the realistic time including waiting. That figure, before tax, is what the offer actually pays, and it frequently reorders which offers look good.
Is gig work not worth doing then?
That is not the argument. The argument is that the decision should be made on the real number rather than the advertised one, because the offers worth taking and the ones worth declining look identical until you subtract.
MileTruth. “Why the earnings screen is not your income.” Baker Ventures LLC, September 7, 2026. https://miletruth.bakerventuresstudio.com/why/your-earnings-screen-is-not-your-income/