Business Expense - Car Insurance Deductible For Accident That Occurred During a Business Trip
As a general rule, you must choose between a mileage deduction or an actual expenses deduction.  The idea is that the mileage deduction is supposed to cover all costs of using the car.  Exceptions include parking fees and tolls, which can be deducted separately under either method.  You explicitly cannot deduct insurance costs if you claim a mileage deduction.   Separately, you probably won't be able to deduct the deductible for your car as a casualty loss.  You first subtract $100 from the deductible and then divide it by your Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) from your tax return.  If your deductible is over 10% of your AGI, you can deduct it.   Note that even with a $1500 deductible, you won't be able to deduct anything if you made more than $14,000 for the year.  For most people, the insurance deductible just isn't large enough relative to income to be tax deductible.   Source
"There is actually a restriction on how high a wage they can pay you. There didn't use to be, but now it has to be reasonable for the work you are doing, so they can't pay you $100/hr while other people doing the same work get minimum wage. You might ask why on earth a parent would want to pay a child way more than they're worth? The salary is tax deductible to the company. Then the child pays their ""expenses"" - hockey fees and equipment, field trips, birthday presents for their friends and so on - out of the money the company paid them.  They also save for their post-secondary education. The rest of the family budget now has a little more room, and the parents can lower their own salaries if they have expensive children. This means more net money in the company and less total income tax paid by the family for the same total income. My concern is that if your parents don't know whether or not you must be paid minimum wage (you must, there's no family exemption) then they also don't know whether you should have EI deducted (probably not) and various other special cases like eligibility for summer student subsidies. The firm's accountant should be able to help with these things and the company should know all this. It's not the role of a 14 year old to ask the Internet how to run a business, the business owners should know it." You've got two options.  Deduct the business portion of the depreciation and actual expenses for operating the car.  Use the IRS standard mileage rate of $.575/mile in 2015. Multiply your business miles by the rate to calculate your deduction.  Assuming you're a sole proprietor you'll include a Schedule C to your return and claim the deduction on that form. If you are the only contributor to the premiums, you will not owe income taxes on the benefits. Only the portion of the benefits you receive which were paid by your employer are taxable. Source: IRS 'Life Insurance & Disability Insurance Proceeds' Question: I am receiving long-term disability. Is it considered taxable? If you pay the entire cost of a health or accident insurance plan, do not include any amounts you receive for your disability as income on your tax return EDIT: In regards to @NateEldredge's comment: If you are inquiring about the premiums, then yes, you have to pay income tax on the portion of income that pays the premiums (it's a post-tax expense and is not tax-deductible) No, you cannot deduct it. There's no business substance in such a trip, it is your vacation, and as such cannot be claimed as an expense against the rental income. You may be able to deduct the coffee you buy for the meeting with the property manager while there, but there's no way you can justify a 7-10 days vacation with your whole family as an expense to maintain the rental property. Since you will only have less than 2 weeks personal use, you won't need to prorate expenses, so you have that at least. Not authoritative, but according to TurboTax: If your new cell phone acts as both your business and personal phone, you are only allowed to deduct the portion used for business from your taxable income. It’s important for you to hang on to your itemized phone bill and receipts to ensure that you’re deducting the right amounts and to keep records of your deduction. Since the usage you're describing sounds like a very small amount of the overall usage, it will probably be difficult to justify a business expense deduction. "Suppose that I work from home, but do not qualify for a business use   of home deduction. As I understand it, this means I cannot deduct   trips from home to another work location (e.g., going to a client's   home or office to do work there). I do not think this is true. You cannot deduct trips to your main business location, i.e.: you cannot deduct trips to your office or client's location if this is your main client and you routinely work on-site. However, if you only visit your clients on occasion for specific events while doing your routine work at home - you can definitely deduct those trips. The deduction of the home usage itself has nothing to do with it. However, there's a different reason they refer to pub 587. Your home must qualify as principal place of business (even if it doesn't qualify for deduction). The qualifications of ""principal place of business"" are described in pub 587. ""if for some personal reason you do not go directly from one location to the other, you cannot deduct more than the amount it would have cost you to go directly from the first location to the second."" What is not clear to me is what exactly is deductible if there are   significant time gaps (within a single day) between trips to different   clients. You got it right. What this quote means is that if you have client A and client B, and you drive from A to B - you can only deduct the travel between A and B, nothing else. I.e.: if you have 2 hours to kill and you take a trip to the mall - you cannot deduct the mileage attributable to that trip. You only deduct the actual distance between A and B as it would be had you driven from A to B directly. The example you cite re first client being considered as the place of business is for the case where your home doesn't qualify as principal place of business. In this case you start counting miles from your first client, and only for direct trips from client to client. If you only have 1 client in that day, tough luck, nothing to deduct. Also, it's not clear whether stopoffs between clients would really be   ""personal reasons"", since the appointment times are often set by the   client, so it's not as if the delay between A and B was just because I   felt like it; there was never the option of going directly from A to   B. That's what is called ""facts and circumstances"". You can argue that you had enough time between meetings to go back to your home office to continue working. The IRS agent auditing you (and you're likely to get audited) will consider that. Maybe will accept it. Maybe not. If I had a gap like that described above, I could save on my taxes by   going to the park or a hamburger stand instead of going home between A   and B But then you wouldn't be at home, so why would it be ""principal place of business"" if you're not there? Boom, lost deduction for the trip to the first client. I suggest you talk to a licensed tax adviser (EA/CPA licensed in your State). You're dealing with deductions that are considered ""red flags"" for the IRS. I.e.: many people believe that these deductions (business use of your home/car) trigger audits. To substantiate business use of your car you need to keep very good track of your travels (literally travel log, they sell them at Staples), and make sure to distinguish between personal travel and business travel, keep proofs that the meetings took place (although keeping a log is a requirement, it can be backdated/faked, so if audited - the IRS will want to see more than your own documentation). A good tax adviser will educate you on all these rules, and also clarify the complexities you were asking about here. I'm not a tax adviser, so don't rely on this answer when you're preparing your tax return or responding to the IRS audit. In your edit you ask this: Specifically, what I'm wondering is whether it is possible for a home   to qualify as a ""principal place of business"" for purposes of   deducting car expenses but not for the home office deduction. The answer is yes. Deductibility is determined by exclusivity of use, among other things. But the fact that you manage your business from your kitchen doesn't make your kitchen any less of a principal place of business. It is non-deductible because you also cook your dinners there, but it is still, nonetheless, your principal place of business. The Pub 587 which I linked to has these qualifications: 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. As you see, exclusivity of the usage of your home area is not a requirement here. The ""exclusively and regularly"" in the quote refers to your business not using any other location, and managing it from home regularly. I.e.: if you manage your business a day in a year - that's not enough for it to be considered principal. If you manage your business from your office and your home - you cannot consider home as principal." I am assuming this is USA. While it is a bit of a pain, you are best off to have separate accounts for your business and personal.  This way, if it comes to audit, you hand the IRS statements for your business account(s) and they match your return.   As a further precaution I would have the card(s) you use for business expenses look different then the ones you use for personal so you don't mess another one up. "When you pay expenses on behalf of someone, you do not Debit your expense accounts.  You credit your Bank and debit the Liability.  The method that you mentioned (debit expense then credit it back to liability) is an acceptable practice, but the method is only used when you accidentially debited your expense accounts without knowing that it is for someone else (or in the case of split transactions). You need to specify ""being expense paid on behalf of someone"" when you credit the expense account."