IRS Increases Mileage Rates through 12-31-08

From the IRS press release:

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service today announced an increase in the optional standard mileage rates for the final six months of 2008. Taxpayers may use the optional standard rates to calculate the deductible costs of operating an automobile for business, charitable, medical or moving purposes.

The rate will increase to 58.5 cents a mile for all business miles driven from July 1, 2008, through Dec. 31, 2008. This is an increase of eight (8) cents from the 50.5 cent rate in effect for the first six months of 2008, as set forth in Rev. Proc. 2007-70. [opens up a PDF]

In recognition of recent gasoline price increases, the IRS made this special adjustment for the final months of 2008. The IRS normally updates the mileage rates once a year in the fall for the next calendar year.

"Rising gas prices are having a major impact on individual Americans. Given the increase in prices, the IRS is adjusting the standard mileage rates to better reflect the real cost of operating an automobile," said IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman. "We want the reimbursement rate to be fair to taxpayers."

While gasoline is a significant factor in the mileage figure, other items enter into the calculation of mileage rates, such as depreciation and insurance and other fixed and variable costs.

The optional business standard mileage rate is used to compute the deductible costs of operating an automobile for business use in lieu of tracking actual costs. This rate is also used as a benchmark by the federal government and many businesses to reimburse their employees for mileage.

The new six-month rate for computing deductible medical or moving expenses will also increase by eight (8) cents to 27 cents a mile, up from 19 cents for the first six months of 2008. The rate for providing services for charitable organizations is set by statute, not the IRS, and remains at 14 cents a mile.

The new rates are contained in Announcement 2008-63 [opens up a PDF] on the optional standard mileage rates.

Other changes include moving the Medical/Moving rate to 27 cents per mile. The Charitable rate remains unchanged at 14 cents per mile.

To The Participants

Thanks to all of you who have attended our recent events including the Accounting Boot Camp in Watsonville and the New 990 presentation in Santa Ana. I will be posting the answers to the questions we received over the next few days as I finish tracking down the answers.

For those of you interested in attending other events of ours or scheduling them please go to CAN's website or contact me via my profile here.

Thanks!

Pre-Tax Benefits

Two Things:
One - I have changed the name of our blog. Slightly. Over the last fourteen months of this blog (fourteen months!) it has changed from just being a resource for the Nonprofit Accounting Boot Camps we are doing to a broader look at the nonprofit finance and administrative world. I think the name should reflect that, but the change should not be too big to confuse people.

As the link above points out we are still doing the boot camps and I am still doing nonprofit accounting presentations around the state and in other states. Check the CAN home page for the latests educational events or click here to sign up for our enewsletter to have all the latest news delivered to your in-box.

Two - A tip of the hat to Kim at California Payroll. Pre-tax transportation benefits! Here in CA we are pushing $4.50 a gallon so anyway to help counts. These benefits won't lower prices but could help out tax-wise and any benefits that we can offer our employees that don't cost the employer much are win-win. From Kim's email:

In a nutshell, your employees can set aside $115 per month in pre-tax income to use towards riding in a commuter highway vehicle (qualified vanpool arrangement) between home and work and for purchasing transit passes. Also, your employees can set aside $220 per month for qualified parking.

Find out more from IRS Publication 15-B, The Employers Guide for Fringe Benefits. Click here to download a PDF of the publication. Thanks Kim!

Nonprofit Deregulation?

On the Independent Sector's website is a really good article by Clara Miller, a leader in the sector who I think makes a lot of sense and has written extensively about nonprofit financial issues.

In this piece she once again lays out the complex world of nonprofit capital management. Things that we as nonprofit finance professionals take for granted that would send our for-profit counterparts into confused apoplexy. She posits that in our efforts to do good we may have let a patchwork of rules and regulations from many different sources cover us so that our capacity to meet our missions may seriously limited if not in jeopardy.

Read the article, or others by her, and tell us what you think about what she has to say and the issues she brings up in the comments section below.

Comments On The 990 Instuctions

Independent Sector released their comments to the redesigned form 990 instructions. The instructions were released on April 7th and the comment period closed June 2nd. Click here for a PDF of what the IS had to say.