IFTA

You cannot file for IFTA unless you have an account with them. Call/email the DMV in your state that deals with commercial vehicle registrations. They should be able to guide you. Signing up for IFTA is done through the particular state your business is based out of.

If you have all the miles and gallons, then IFTA is simple to file. In fact, it’s much simpler than what people think. It’s just time-consuming. In your case, though, the 10 days should be little work.

By the way, if you’re a member of OOIDA, you can call them for help. They currently have a discount on their membership. $35 for the year. Normally it’s $45.

 

The IFTA form, which is probably available online in your state, will look like the image below. For the non-IFTA miles, you will likely be inserting zero. The terminology is explained in detail in the Illinois IFTA manual in pdf, which you can find by googling it. Also, the IFTA miles and taxable miles will likely be the same unless you travelled on toll roads in Nova Scotia or Massachusetts. Those toll miles are exempt from IFTA, however, there are additional requirements that need to be met. You can find the details on the MA website by googling it. The MA toll mile exemption is mostly meant for locals.

When you first submit your IFTA report, the website will automatically tell you if there are any errors. Once the report is submitted, IFTA probably won’t bother you unless your MPG is all over the place for every quarter. If your mpg is really high or varies a lot from quarter to quarter that may very well be an indication of a miscalculation, missing information, or in the eyes of IFTA, an attempt to cheat that can warrant an IFTA audit. Luckily, that hasn’t happened to me, but I’m very careful with my numbers.

By the way, read the IFTA manual, especially the section that deals with proper record keeping. They want you to keep records for all the miles and gallons for every month, quarter, and year. You also must have some kind of supporting documents like fuel receipts/statements, ELD logs, etc.

 

Receipts do not always show the fuel tax, but it is there. The only diesel fuel that isn’t taxable, or at least not as high, is the so called red dyed diesel. You won’t find red diesel at major truck stops or even most truck stops. Red diesel is for off-road use only. Attempting to put it in your truck is illegal.

The diesel you bought is very likely ULSD, which is subject to fuel taxes. All the diesel gallons you have purchased will need to be reported to IFTA. By the way, the “total gallons purchased” also includes non-IFTA jurisdictions, but this probably doesn’t apply to you, so disregard it.

 

When you buy fuel at the pump, you're paying the tax there.

Say, your truck gets 7 miles per gallon. You drive 600 miles in Indiana for the quarter. So to not owe Indiana anything in fuel tax via IFTA you would have needed to buy 86 gallons of fuel. 86g x 7mpg= 602 miles. If you bought 100 gallons of fuel in Indiana for that quarter, you would get an IN fuel tax credit for the 14 gallon xtra.

For the state that you didn't buy fuel in, you will need to pay the fuel tax based on your trucks 7mpg. So, say you drove 600 miles in WI, but bought no fuel there, you would owe WI the WI fuel tax rate for 86 gallons.

I'm not the best at explaining things, but hope this helps...