Charitable Mileage Rates

The IRS has lowered the standard mileage rates used to deduct costs of operating an automobile for business, medical, and moving purposes. The standard mileage rate for employees - including nonprofit employees - will decrease effective January 1, 2010, from 55 cents per mile to 50 cents per mile. The rate for driving for medical or moving purposes will decrease from 24 cents per mile to 16.5 cents. The IRS has authority to change those rates to reflect costs incurred. But Congress set the mileage for charitable volunteers in statute and locked in the rate at just 14 cents a mile and has not adjusted the rate in the last 12 years. Because it costs volunteers as much to fill up their gas tanks as it does employees, the National Council continues to advocate that Congress eliminate this unfair treatment of nonprofit volunteers.

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