Tax Guru – Ker$tetter Letter

Q:

Subject: purchasing a business vehicle over 6000 lbs.

Kerry,
I read your article with interest as I am about to purchase a new (to me) used vehicle. I am a real estate broker in Aspen, Colorado and use my vehicle for business about 85-90% of the time. Do you have a current list of vehicles that qualify?

Since I live in the mountains (it’s snowing as I write this) and since I do a lot of large acreage land sales bashing around in the sage brush, a large SUV fits my needs but I want to make sure it qualifies for the tax break. There seems to be a lot of varying opinions on what constitutes 6000 lbs of curb weight vs. carrying or load weight.

Any information you can share with me on this matter is greatly appreciated.

Regards,

A:

I long ago discovered that it wasn’t practical for me to try to maintain a list of all vehicles that weigh more than 6,000 pounds.

With new vehicles, it’s easy to determine the weight because the salespersons are eager to help you qualify for the much more lucrative deductions.

For a used vehicle, you may want to use a simple Google search for the GVW of the vehicle you are considering.  That’s what I do when clients send me their tax info and I need to know whether a newly acquired vehicle is heavy enough for the large Section 179 deduction.  I routinely use Google to locate this info.  That will give you an approximate idea for the models you are looking at.

You can then confirm the qualification of a particular vehicle that you are considering the purchase of by asking the current owner what the documented GVW is on his/her ownership records.  That would be proof positive of the actual weight.

If the documented weight is slightly less than 6,000 pounds, the vehicle may still qualify if heavy enough permanent accessories have been installed on the vehicle after the original weight was documented to push it over the magic 6,000 pound threshold.

Good luck.  I hope this helps.

Kerry Kerstetter