Subject: Mileage deduction Comment: Hi Ladies and Gentlemen at Tax Reform Panel, I strongly suggesth the mileage deduction should be removed for invididuals. There is a requirement that tax payers should keep records of miles driven. Therefore individual tax payers are forced to actually drive required number of miles to take the deduction. Basically the law requires odometers should be going up faster and faster. As the odometer runs faster, so does the import bill for crude. With high crude prices and the possibility of some countries using the oil money to finance terror this mileage deduction now becomes very inadvisible. If you consider the fact that many individuals may own gas guzzling SUVs, mileage deduction is a wasteful diversion of public spending. Instead, I suggest the standard deduction must be raised by some amount e.g. $4000 for individual and $8000 for family for transport expense. Even a housewife driving kids to school is also productive work! Why limit the transport expense to only work place? Find out the average mileage expense Americans incur on "productive" activities nationwide and divide the sum by number of tax payers to arrive at the transport deduction to be added to standard deduction. A fixed transport deduction will greatly help every family. The transport deduction should not be part of Schedule-A. Afterall every person needs to commute to work, even poor people. Schedule-A is biased in favor of rich because standard deduction cant' be taken. Increasing standard deduction for transport expense will save imported gasoline for US and reduce trade deficit because people are not forced to waste gasoline. Now people know they get the transport expense anyway on 1040, they will use gasoline judiciously and wisely instead of just putting up more miles on their odometers. If you really like this suggestion, and if you think US can save several trillion dollars in long term on crude oil bills, kindly consider paying me a reward for my taking my valuable time off to write up this comment. I appreciate your help as I need the money, whatever the amount. Thanks for any consideration! Bhadraiah Mallampalli (848) 667-6673 92 Doe Court Monmouth Junction NJ 08852 |