Mileage? There’s an App for That

Have trouble keeping track of your mileage for tax deductions or reimbursements? Let your iPhone do it. Taxgirl has the details.

Despite the much ballyhooed drop in the IRS’ standard mileage rates for 2010, they’re still not bad. For 2010, the rates are:

– 50 cents per mile for business miles driven
– 16.5 cents per mile driven for medical or moving purposes
– 14 cents per mile driven in service of charitable organizations

The key to taking advantage of these rates is to track your mileage. Easier said than done, right?

That may be changing. A new app for the iPhone, automilezâ„¢, now generates mileage logs for you after each trip — no more scrambling for a pen in your car. It’s a GPS mileage logging and online log management service, so it measures your mileage for you — you just have to say what it’s for. If you use the pre-selected categories, it will even calculate the total tax deduction for the trip. The app will email you the data.

Granted, I haven’t seen it in action but it sounds pretty cool. If you’re itching to give it a try, you can do it for free. There’s no charge for the app: you can download it
from the Apple store. If you don’t have an iPhone, don’t fret: automilezâ„¢ for Blackberry, Windows CE, Palm Pre and other platforms are currently in development.

Photo by marcello99.