First Person: Understanding the Charitable Mileage Deduction

One tax deduction that people often forget to track is the miles driven for charitable purposes. Charitable mileage is more than the miles we drive while on duty as a 4-H leader or Red Cross volunteer, it could include all mileage that is directly related to the use of our car in the process of giving service to a qualified charitable organization. This includes those special trips we make to drop off food and supplies to a local charity, driving around town to pick up baskets for a church or school fund raiser, or even driving our kids to a local park to help with some sort of civic-wide clean up project.

For those of us who do a lot of volunteer work, not claiming the charitable mileage deduction means that we could be leaving money on the table at tax time.

What constitutes a qualified organization?

To claim the charitable mileage deduction, the place where we volunteer has to be a qualified organization, and not just a generic good neighbor thing. Qualified organizations include:

--Churches and other religious organizations
--Non profit charitable organizations
--Most non profit educational organizations
--Non profit hospitals and medical research facilities
--Non profit volunteer fire departments
--Public parks and other public recreational facilities
--Civil defense agencies

As long as we are making a special trip to one of these qualifying organizations, then the mileage is generally deductible.

There are a few exceptions, however. For example, if we decided to volunteer at our children's' school after dropping them off, then we can't claim that mileage as "charitable mileage" since we were going to the school anyway. But if we make a special point of driving to the school to volunteer to grade papers in the middle of the day, that mileage is deductible.

How to track charitable mileage and the current IRS deduction rate

Tracking your charitable mileage is quite simple and requires nothing more than a pocket journal that can be kept in the glove box of the car. At the beginning of every trip that's conducted for charitable purposes, record this information:

--Date
--Name of organization
--Purpose of trip
--Starting mileage reading on the odometer

After the trip is finished, record this information:

--Ending mileage reading on the odometer:
--Total mileage

At the end of the year, total up all the charitable mileage. This number is then multiplied by the IRS charitable mileage rate, which for the 2010 tax year is 14 cents per mile. Be sure to file that log with all the rest of your important tax documents ~ that log is the proof you'll need to validate charitable miles driven in case of an audit.

For a better understanding of qualifying charitable mileage and related expenses, the IRS does a great job of explaining the process Form 526 entitled "Charitable Contributions. Your account can also help clarify when charitable mileage can be claimed or not.

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