Need advice on buying my first rental property

[Roman M.]

Hello BP community, thanks everyone in advance for your help, recently sold my personal property and was able to gain a profit of about 53k which I am planning to use as a down payment for my first rental property. I work as an independent contractor and had an income of 65k for 2018 and no debts, which allows me to buy a property up to 301000, the problem is that i am doing my taxes now and if I deduct mileage for my car this will result in a 36000 income which allows me to buy a property up to $193000. The other option would be not to deduct the mileage, keep an income of $65000 and pay $11610 in taxes from my $53000 gain from selling my personal property. I am debt free, have listened to around 40 books related to real estate and rental property investing and want to buy my first property in the next 3 months.please advice what would be best in my situation.

Thank you.