Suppose that, during May 2017, you buy a new $50,000 SUV that qualifies for both Section 179 expensing and bonus depreciation. You drive this SUV 15,000 miles during the year, of which 87 percent are business miles.

Let’s further suppose that you can qualify to use the IRS mileage rates (for 2017, 53.5 cents per business mile).

You plan to use the new SUV for three years and then sell it to a third party. Let’s ask and answer three questions:

Would you cheat yourself by using the mileage rates?

If you cheated yourself, how badly did you cheat yourself?

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