Can you deduct toll expenses when using a personal EZ Tag for business driving?

So I've been driving a lot for my consulting work this year and constantly hitting toll roads because they're faster. I use my personal EZ Tag (attached to my windshield) for all these tolls. Now I'm trying to figure out my tax situation - can I actually expense all these toll charges separately when I file, or am I stuck just claiming the standard mileage deduction rate? I'm in the US and trying to maximize my deductions since these tolls are adding up fast. I know I can get individual receipts for each toll through my EZ Tag account online. Would the IRS consider this double-dipping if I claim both the standard mileage rate AND the toll expenses? Or do I need to choose one method? Thanks for any help on this!

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19 comments

Mateo Rodriguez

•8M

You're in luck! When you use the standard mileage rate for business driving, you CAN still deduct tolls and parking fees separately. The standard mileage rate covers the basics like gas, maintenance, depreciation, and insurance, but toll expenses are considered a separate deductible expense. Just make sure you keep good records. Those EZ Tag receipts you mentioned will be perfect documentation. You'll need to track which toll expenses were for business versus personal use, so keep a log of your business trips that matches up with those toll receipts. These expenses would be reported on Schedule C if you're self-employed or on Form 2106 if you're an employee with unreimbursed business expenses (though these are generally suspended until 2026 under current tax law unless you're in certain professions).

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Mateo Rodriguez

•8M

Yes, you can use the standard mileage rate AND still deduct tolls and parking fees. Your accountant was partially right - you do have to choose between standard mileage or actual car expenses (gas, repairs, etc.) as your main deduction method. However, certain expenses like tolls, parking fees, and interest on a car loan are always deductible regardless of which method you choose. The IRS specifically allows these as additional business expenses on top of your standard mileage deduction.

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Aisha Abdullah

•8M

I had this exact same issue last year with tons of business travel and toll roads! I tried figuring it out myself but got so frustrated with all the conflicting info online. I ended up using https://taxr.ai to analyze my toll receipts and business mileage logs. Their system automatically sorted out which tolls were business-related based on my calendar and GPS data. The best part was they showed me exactly how to document everything properly to maximize my deductions. They even created a custom report that showed the percentage of business use for my vehicle that matched my toll usage patterns. Saved me a ton of time and definitely got me a bigger refund than I would've figured out on my own.

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Aisha Abdullah

•8M

You just upload your EZ Tag statements (either screenshots or PDFs) and it uses AI to extract all the toll entries automatically. Then you connect your calendar or manually identify which days were business travel. It matches everything up based on timestamps and locations. It definitely works with parking receipts too - you can upload photos of paper receipts or forward email receipts. The system is pretty smart about extracting the relevant info from different formats. It saved me at least 5-6 hours of spreadsheet work sorting through everything.

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Yuki Tanaka

•8M

Just wanted to follow up - I tried https://taxr.ai after seeing it mentioned here and it was seriously a game changer for my business expenses! I had over 200 toll charges from last year plus a bunch of parking receipts from client meetings. The system extracted everything from my EZ Tag statements automatically and even identified patterns in my driving to suggest which trips were likely business related. I just had to verify a few edge cases. It saved me literally hours of work and found about $840 in deductions I would've missed. My accountant was super impressed with the documentation it generated too!

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Carmen Diaz

•8M

If you're spending hours trying to get through to the IRS to confirm this deduction question, I feel your pain! I was stuck on hold for 2+ hours trying to get clarification on my business mileage and toll deductions last year. Finally discovered https://claimyr.com which got me connected to an actual IRS agent in about 20 minutes. You can see how it works at https://youtu.be/_kiP6q8DX5c The agent confirmed that yes, tolls are separately deductible even when using standard mileage, and actually gave me some additional tips about other travel expenses I could deduct that I had no idea about. Definitely worth it rather than wasting half your day on hold!

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Carmen Diaz

•8M

It doesn't actually skip the line - it uses an automated system to continually call the IRS for you and only connects when a real person answers. Basically it waits on hold so you don't have to. When an agent picks up, you get a call connecting you directly to them. It's completely legitimate and works with the existing IRS phone system. They don't have special access - they just handle the frustrating part of repeatedly calling and waiting on hold. I was skeptical too but it absolutely worked for me and saved hours of my time.

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AstroAce

•8M

I need to apologize to everyone here. I was the skeptic about that Claimyr service for reaching the IRS, but I actually tried it yesterday out of desperation when I needed to confirm some details about my business mileage and toll deductions. Shockingly, it worked exactly as described. I got a call back in about 25 minutes connecting me directly to an IRS representative. The agent was super helpful and confirmed that toll expenses are indeed separately deductible even when using the standard mileage rate. She also helped clear up some confusion about my quarterly estimated payments. Would never have gotten this resolved otherwise since I was on day 3 of trying to reach someone!

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Zoe Kyriakidou

•8M

Just want to share what my tax preparer told me about this last year. If you're self-employed and using Schedule C, make sure you're tracking WHEN you started using your EZ Tag for business. If you've had it for personal use and then started using it for business, you need to clearly document when that switch happened. Also, the standard mileage rate changes every year - for 2023 it was 65.5 cents per mile for the second half of the year. And remember that commuting from home to your regular workplace isn't deductible, even if you hit tolls during that commute.

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Zoe Kyriakidou

•8M

If you have a legitimate home office that qualifies as your principal place of business, then yes - trips from your home to client locations would be fully deductible business miles, including any tolls. For days when you go to your regular office, that's still considered commuting and those miles and tolls wouldn't be deductible. The key distinction is whether you're traveling from home to your regular workplace (not deductible) versus traveling from home to temporary work locations like client sites (deductible).

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Kristin Frank

•4M

Yes, that's exactly right! You'll want to keep a mileage log throughout the year tracking your total miles driven and which trips were for business purposes. At the end of the year, divide your business miles by total miles to get your business use percentage. For example, if you drove 20,000 total miles and 14,000 were for business, that's 70% business use. Then you'd only deduct 70% of your toll expenses as business deductions. The IRS expects contemporaneous records, so it's much better to track this as you go rather than trying to recreate it at tax time. A simple smartphone app or even a notebook in your car works great for logging business trips and their purposes.

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