You likely do not know all the rules of the road if you are new in business, especially the rules of the tax road.

When you arrive at your tax preparer’s place of business hoping that your preparer can help with your lack of records, you are going to find little or perhaps no help.

Here’s why: the tax code prohibits your tax preparer from creating or inventing the tax records you were supposed to keep.

Say you arrive like this:

No receipts for car expenses

No mileage log

In this condition, your deductible business vehicle expenses for the year are zero because you are in direct violation of the tax code and IRS regulations that require you to prove your business use of the vehicle using the appropriate measure of percent business mileage.1

Thankfully, because you are reading this article, you may recover from this zero vehicle mileage deduction and perhaps even qualify for a full deduction. ... Log in to view full article.