You forgot to track your mileage. Your phone didn't.
Gary FongShare
Claudealot · Schedule C Deductions
You forgot to track your mileage. Your phone didn't.
How to reconstruct a year of business miles from Google Maps Timeline — before your CPA waves you off the deduction.
7 min read · Gather · Build · Present
Most self-employed filers know the mileage deduction exists. Fewer track it. The mental model goes: I drive for work sometimes, I'll figure it out at tax time. Then March arrives, the receipts are everywhere, and the mileage log doesn't exist.
Here is the part most people miss. If you had Google Maps on your phone with Location History on, you already have a mileage log. You just have to ask the right place for it.
What a mile is worth
The IRS sets a standard business mileage rate each year. For 2024 it was 67 cents per mile. For 2025 it went up to 70 cents per mile. Those numbers are official, set in IRS Notice 2025-5.
Run the math at a modest 5,000 business miles a year. That is roughly an hour of driving per work week. At the 2024 rate, the deduction is $3,350. At the 2025 rate, $3,500. Those dollars come off your Schedule C net profit, which means they reduce both your income tax and your self-employment tax.
For most self-employed filers, the combined hit on a marginal dollar of Schedule C profit is somewhere between 25 and 40 percent. So 5,000 untracked business miles is roughly $850 to $1,400 of actual tax money on the table. Side hustlers with 8,000 to 12,000 business miles routinely leave $2,000+ behind because they did not keep the log.
If you have not filed yet, this is a deduction worth recovering. If you already filed, you can amend for up to 3 years from filing OR 2 years from payment, whichever is later, under IRC §6511.
Google Maps Timeline — the reconstruction tool you already own
Google Maps Timeline is a feature that records every place you have been, with timestamps and route distances, as long as Location History was turned on. It runs in the background on Android and on any iPhone with Google Maps installed and Location History enabled.
To open it on Android:
- Open the Google Maps app.
- Tap your profile picture, top right.
- Choose Your Timeline.
- Use the calendar at the top to navigate to any day in the year you are reconstructing.
- Each day shows your trips, the places you stopped, and the distance between them.
On iPhone with Google Maps installed, the path is the same. Profile picture, Your Timeline, calendar.
Important caveat
Google has been migrating Timeline data from cloud storage to on-device storage. If your phone is the same one you used last year, your data is probably still there. If you replaced your phone without enabling Timeline backup, older data may be gone. The first thing to do today is open Timeline on the phone you used last year and confirm what is still accessible. The next thing is to enable backup so you do not lose it again.
For the year that just started, a tracker app is better
Timeline is great for reconstruction. It is mediocre for going forward, because it does not separate business trips from personal ones. You end up doing classification work months later, from memory.
A dedicated mileage app classifies trips the day they happen, with a left-or-right swipe on your phone. The major ones:
- MileIQ — the popular one. Auto-tracks, swipe to classify, exports IRS-formatted reports. About $6 per month.
- Stride — free. Manual or auto-track. Built for gig workers.
- Everlance — free tier plus paid. Decent UI.
- TripLog — free + paid tiers. Stronger for fleets.
Pick one, install it today, and the 2026 tax year takes care of itself.
How Claudealot uses this
Mileage is one of the things you collect in the GATHER step of the ClaudeALot method. The instruction in the course is concrete: open Google Maps Timeline, export the period you are covering, and drop the file into the same folder as your bank statements and receipts.
Then Claude BUILDS. Following the course's Mileage Reconstruction Protocol, Claude separates likely-business trips from likely-personal ones based on destination type, and turns the raw Timeline data into a mileage summary table with every trip tied back to its source record. That table goes into your CPA Presentation Booklet alongside the rest of your books.
Then you PRESENT. You hand the finished booklet to your CPA. The CPA still signs the return — and if you are amending, the CPA still signs the 1040-X. Claude is the second set of eyes that found the deduction you missed.
If you have a year of untracked business miles sitting on your phone, that money is recoverable — and the log the IRS would want to see can be rebuilt from records you already own.
Keep your CPA. Claudealot is the second set of eyes.
ClaudeALot Bookkeeping is a self-help course. It is not tax advice and not legal advice, and it is not a substitute for your CPA, EA, or tax attorney. The reasonable-cause defense under Treas. Reg. §1.6664-4 comes from your credentialed professional signing the return, not from AI. We are the second set of eyes that finds the deductions and documents the file. Your CPA is the one who files it and defends it if the letter arrives.
You gather. Claude builds. You present.
Bank statements, receipts, mileage — into one folder. Claude builds your books. You walk into your CPA’s office with a finished booklet. That’s it.
Sources: IRS Notice 2025-5 (standard mileage rates), IRS Notice 2026-10. Mileage rates verified at irs.gov/tax-professionals/standard-mileage-rates.