Self employed. What write offs come after the line mortgage companies look at?

[zoochadookdook]

Hey all, I've been self employed for the last few years and am looking to refinance my mortgage. Last year I made around 40k. With mileage write offs alone I will be down to 30k gross (which doesn't make a ton of sense considering my $1500 beater Honda isn't costing .52/mile in repairs and gas but whatever). Are there any self employed individuals on here that have struggled showing enough gross to refinance a mortgage? Option A is just not write off the miles and eat the higher tax but that kind of sucks as I tracked every single trip last year.

[robartsd]

I had a college roommate who had difficulty with self employment income and getting a loan (he worked a paper route and wrote off mileage). His loan was to replace his car, so he was able to shop around a bit more (mortgage lending criteria doesn't seem to be as varied). I'm pretty sure all your business expenses will be excluded from your income for mortgage consideration. Even if you file your 2018 taxes without claiming mileage or other expenses, as a self employed person, the lender is likely to want multiple years of documentation for your income.

[Telecaster]

Hey all, I've been self employed for the last few years and am looking to refinance my mortgage. Last year I made around 40k. With mileage write offs alone I will be down to 30k gross (which doesn't make a ton of sense considering my $1500 beater Honda isn't costing .52/mile in repairs and gas but whatever). Are there any self employed individuals on here that have struggled showing enough gross to refinance a mortgage? Option A is just not write off the miles and eat the higher tax but that kind of sucks as I tracked every single trip last year.

One time--and this was before meltdown so I don't know if they do this anymore--I was in the same situation, but was able to refinance by providing my personal bank statements showing I had plenty of cash flow, even my income for tax purposes wasn't particularly high.   

[zoochadookdook]

I had a college roommate who had difficulty with self employment income and getting a loan (he worked a paper route and wrote off mileage). His loan was to replace his car, so he was able to shop around a bit more (mortgage lending criteria doesn't seem to be as varied). I'm pretty sure all your business expenses will be excluded from your income for mortgage consideration. Even if you file your 2018 taxes without claiming mileage or other expenses, as a self employed person, the lender is likely to want multiple years of documentation for your income.

I've filed every year it's just I drive on average 35k or so-around 20k documented work miles. This year I'll be using one business account inflow/outflow as mentioned below vs the cash basis I've been for the past few.

[robartsd]

I had a college roommate who had difficulty with self employment income and getting a loan (he worked a paper route and wrote off mileage). His loan was to replace his car, so he was able to shop around a bit more (mortgage lending criteria doesn't seem to be as varied). I'm pretty sure all your business expenses will be excluded from your income for mortgage consideration. Even if you file your 2018 taxes without claiming mileage or other expenses, as a self employed person, the lender is likely to want multiple years of documentation for your income.

I've filed every year it's just I drive on average 35k or so-around 20k documented work miles. This year I'll be using one business account inflow/outflow as mentioned below vs the cash basis I've been for the past few.

I didn't think you hadn't filed, but if the income you show on your 2017 taxes is significantly lower than the income you show on your 2018 taxes the loan processor will likely discount the 2018 income. Substantiating your actual cash flow as Telecaster suggests would likely work unless tighter rules make the bank statements a less acceptable form of documenting your income.