TL; DR: Go now (or as close to the end of Dec 31st as you can get)… and take a picture of your odometer with your smartphone for reference for your taxes or use an expense or mileage tracker.
In the Real Estate industry and support services, very few people are employed in a way that they enjoy the benefits of a corporate-owned vehicle. This means that the majority of people working in these industries need to track vehicular expenses and travel locations to differentiate personal use from work use. Revenue Canada frowns upon too much work usage for a vehicle and even if it’s legitimate, they may require proof of such to back-up a claim on your income taxes. There are MANY ways of tracking and recording this information (automated and manual):
- A simple spreadsheet or notebook detailing purpose, location, odometer, date and time
(You must record – Date, Destination, Purpose, Number of kilometres driven) - QuickBooks
- Driversnote.ca
- MileIQ
- Tessie
All in all, the business mileage we incur due to travels in the Real Estate Industry is tax deductible. How accurate you track it and maintaining the documentation if CRA asks you to prove it is all about the system used. Find what works for you, but automated solutions are the best (and likely the cheapest).
There was a recent post on Facebook, that one user was complaining about a price increase by one of the ones listed above. If you’ve ever sat down at the end of the year to figure out your business mileage manually… You know it takes HOURS!!! The price increase was roughly $36/year – That’s $3/month for automated tracking of mileage – Figure out how much that is in hourly time based on your yearly earnings – It’s probably not even worth thinking about!
