No receipt, no deduction, right? In general, yes. The small business accounting mantra has been relentlessly burdensome for decades: “No receipt, no deduction.”

My own tax clients quickly remind me of this basic record-keeping rule. Over the years, I’ve heard this countless times: “But I don’t have any receipts. I guess I can’t take the deduction, right?”

What is my response to the “No receipt, no deduction” lament? “Not so fast! Where there is a fiscal rule, there is an exception to the rule.”

In certain situations, the IRS penalizes making deductions without a receipt. Here are three legal exceptions to the “No receipt, no deduction” rule.

EXCEPTION # 1: Vehicle expenses

You are allowed to deduct your vehicle expenses to the extent that you have used it for business purposes. If you drove your car 100% for business, then 100% of your vehicle expenses are deductible.

And you have two options for determining those vehicle expenses:

1) The actual expense method 2) The mileage method

Our focus here is on Option # 2, because with the Mileage Method your vehicle expense is simply the number of business miles multiplied by the official IRS mileage rate.

For 2014, this rate is 56 cents per mile. In 2014, if you drive your vehicle 10,000 miles for business, you can report a deduction of $ 5,600, without having to save any receipts for gas, oil changes, repairs and maintenance, insurance, etc.

You have to document your business mileage using a written record of some kind, but this is usually much easier than saving all those receipts for actual vehicle expenses.

EXCEPTION # 2: Meals during the trip

When traveling out of town on an overnight business trip, you can deduct the actual expense of your meals (keeping the receipt), or you can rely on the little-known “Per Diem Method” (which does not require a receipt).

The Per Diem method gives you a daily food allowance for each day of the trip, depending on the part of the country you visit. For example, the daily meal rate for Birmingham, AL is $ 56; for San Francisco, it’s $ 71 (as of October 2014).

To find the per diem amounts for any state, go to:

http://www.gsa.gov/portal/content/104877

EXCEPTION # 3: The $ 75 Rule

Here’s another easy way to avoid the hassle of saving receipts – this involves your business meal and entertainment expenses. Believe it or not, the IRS does not require a receipt when your business meal or entertainment expense is less than $ 75 per expense.

It sounds too good to be true? Well, there is a “catch”, of course: You still need to keep a record of the following five facts related to the deductible event:

1) Who did you eat or entertain with? ie the names of the persons and the nature of their business relationship with you 2) WHEN did the entertainment occur? ie the date 3) WHERE did the entertainment take place? that is, the name of the restaurant or other place 4) WHY did they meet? ie a description of the business purpose of the meal or event 5) HOW MUCH did you spend? that is, the dollar amount

You must record these five facts in a log. Your daily appointment schedule or timer is the perfect place to jot this down in less than a minute. Once you’ve met the IRS justification requirements, you can throw away the receipt. In the event of an audit, you will be covered.

Two final comments: Exception n. 2 applies to overnight travel situations, regardless of whether you eat alone or with business partners. The exception n. 3 applies to meal and entertainment expenses incurred when you are with someone with whom you have an existing or future business relationship, regardless of whether you are in town or on overnight travel status.