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deduct your travel expenses. These expenses are discussed in chapter 1. If you travel more than 100 miles away from home in connection with your performance of services a5 a member of the rese/Ves, you may be able to deduct some of your reserve-related travel costs as an adjustment to gross income rather than as an itemized deduction. For more information, see Armed Forces Reservists Trav. eling More Than 100 Miles From Home under Special Rules, in chapter 6. Commuting expenses. You cannot deduct the costs of taking a bus, trolley, subway, or taxi, or of driving a car between your home and your main or regular place of work. These costs are personal commuting expenses. You cannot de- duct commuting expenses no matter how far your home is from your regular place of work. You cannot deduct commuting expenses even if you work during the commuting trip. Example. You had a telephone installed in your car. You sometimes use that telephone to make business calls while commuting to and from work. Sometimes business associates ride with you to and from work, and you have a business discussion in the car. These activities do not change the trip from personal to busi- ness. You cannot deduct your commuting ex- penses. Parking fees. Fees you pay to park your car at your place of business are nondeductible commuting expenses. You can, however, de~ duct business-related parking fees when visiting a customer or client. Advertising display on car, Putting display material that advertises your business on your car does nat change the use of your car from personal use to business use. If you Use this car for commuting or ather personal uses, you still cannot deduct your expenses for those uses. Car pools. You cannot deduct the cost af using your car in a nonprofit car pool. Do not include payments you receive from the passen- gers in your income. These payments are con- sidered reimbursements at your expenses. However, if you operate a car pool for a profit, you must include payments from passengers in your income. You can then deduct your car expenses (using the rules in this publication). Hauling tools or instruments. Hauling tools or instruments in your car while commuting to and from work does not make your car ex~ penses deductible. However, you can deduct any additional costs you have for hauling tools or instruments (such as for renting a tra.ller you tow with your car). Union members' trips from a union hall. If you get your work assignments at a union hall and then go to your place of work, the costs af getting from the union hall to your place of work are nondeductible commuting expenses. Al- though you need the union to get your work assignments, you are employed where you work, not where the union hall is located. Office in thE\! home. If you have an office in your home that qualifies as a principal place of business, you can deduct yoor daily transporta- tion costs between your home and another work location in the same trade or business. (See Publication 587, Business Use of Your Home, far information on determining if your home of- fice qualifies as a principal place of business.) 1_ Examples of dedu ctible transportation. The following examples show when you can deduct transportation expenses based on the location of your work and your home. Example 1. You regularly work in an office in the city where you live. Your employer sends you to a one-Week training session at a different office in the same city. You travel directly from your home to the training location and return each day. You can deduct the cost of your daily round~trip transportation between your home and the training location. Example 2. Your principal place of business is in your home. You can deduct the cost of round~trip transportation between your qualify- ing home office and your client's or customer's place of business. Example 3. You have no regular office, and you do not have an office in your home. In this case, the location of your first business contact is considered your office. Transportation ex- penses between your home and this first contact are nondeductible commuting ex.penses. Trans- portation expenses between your last business contact and your home are also nondeductible commuting expenses. Although you cannot de~ duct the costs of these trips, you can deduct the costs of going from one client or customer to another. Car Expenses If yau use your car for business purposes, you ordinarily can deduct car expenses. You gener~ ally can use one of the two following methods to figure your deductible expenses. . Standard mileage rate. . Actual car expenses. If you use actual expenses to figure your de- duction for a car you lease, there are rules that affect the amount of your lease payments that you can deduct. See Leasing a Car, later. In this publication, "ca( includes a van, pickup, or panel truck. For the definition of "car" for depreciation purposes, see Car defined under Actual Car Expenses, 'ater, S You may be entitled to a tax credit for TIP an electric vehicle or a deduction from gross income for a part of the cost of a clean-fuel vehicle that you place in service dUr- ing the year. The vehicle must meet certain requirements, and you do not have to use it in your business to qualify for the credit or the dedUction, However, you must reduce your ba- sis for depreciation of the electric vehicle or clean-fuel vehicle property by the amount of the credit or deduction you claim. See Depreciation Deduction, later, under Actual Car Expenses. For more information on electric or clean-fuel vehicles, see chapter 12 of Publication 535. Rural mail carriers. If you are a rural mail carrier, you may be able to treat the qualified reimbursement you received as your allowable expense. Because the qualified reimbursement is treated as paid under an accountable plan, your employer should 110t include the reimburse. ment in your income. And, since the reimburse- ment equals the expense, you have no deduction to report on yaur tax return. A "qualified reimbursement" is the reim- bursement you receive that meets both of the following conditions. 1) It is given as an equipment maintenance allowance (EMA) to employees of the U.s. Postal Service. 2) It is at the rate contained in the 1991 col. lective bargaining agreement. Any later agreement cannot increase the qualified reimbursement amount by more than the rate of inflation. See your employer for information on your reim- bursement. m If you are a rural mail carrier and re- I calved a qualified reimbursement, you . , cannot use the standard mileage rate. Standard Mileage Rate You may be able to use the standard mileage rate to figure the deductible costs of operating your car for business purposes. For 2003, the standard mileage rate is 36 cents a mile for all business miles. This rate is adjusted periodi~ cally. m If you use the standard mileage rate for I a year, you cannot deduct your actual . , car expenses for that year. You cannot deduct the special depreciation allowance (and you do not need to make the election not to claim the allowance), depreciation, or lease pay- ments, maintenance and repairs, gasoline (in~ eluding gasoline taxes), oil, insurance, and vehicle registration fees. See Choosing the standard mileage rate and Standard mileage rate not allowed, later. You generally can use the standard mileage rate whether or not yau are reimbursed and whether or not any reimbursement is more or less than the amount figured using the standard mileage rate. See chapter 6 for more infonnation on reimbursements. Choosing the standard mileage rate. If you want to use the standard mileage rate for a car you own, you must choose to use it in the first year the car IS available for use in your business. Then in later years, you can choose to use either the standard mileage rate or actual expenses. If you want to use the standard mileage rate for a car you lease, you must use it for the entire lease period. For leases that began on or before December 31,1997, the standard mileage rate must be used for the entire portion of the lease period (including renewals) that is after 1997. If you choose to use the standard mileage rate, you are considered to have chosen not to use the depreciation methods discussed later. This is because the standard mileage rate in- cludes an allowance for depreciation that is not expressed in terms of years. If you change to the actual expenses method in a later year, but before your car is fully depreciated, you have to estimate the remaining' useful life of the car and use straight line depreciation. For more informa. tion about depreciation included in the standard mileage rate, see Exception under Methods of depreciation under Depreciation Deduction, later. Standard mileage rate not allowed. You cannot use the standard mileage rate if you: Chapter 4 Transportation Page 15 ..