RE: New york HUT

I'm with ya. I don't goto cali based on that, and other, principles.

 

I don't know about staying on the thruway. I would check with the state of New York and ask them or check their website. New York is starving for more revenue so I would not take a chance. If you only go to the state on a rare occasion and don't want to deal with the NYHUT, you can always get a trip permit.

 

I think I figured it out by reading between the lines. When you file your HUT they want miles on and off the toll roads so that implies you need it even if you don't run any miles subject to the tax. So they pretty much extort you into signing up for their silly little program even if you just want to pass through to get to New England. (Not sure why you want to go up there anyway but supposin' you had to...)

 

You don't need a hut sticker or permit as long as you only run the toll roads.

 

Only the toll-covered miles of the Thruway are exempt, not the entire system, so you're going to have to register with HUT. These are the tax exempt sections: https://www.tax.ny.gov/pdf/memos/highway/m95_6m.pdf

After all, you have no way to prove to the nice man with the badge that you're going to only drive tolled sections. He's going to ticket you for not having the required tax registration.

 

To play devils advocate for a minute, I suppose you could fight that ticket on grounds that the officer didn't actually witness you doing anything illegal but was merely assuming you have or will. That typically doesn't hold up in court.

 

Watch out, fighting a ticket in some parts of NY can be a royal PITA. They demand that the driver appear in person for the court date.

I attempted to answer a summons fro a broken spring on the company trailer after a letter to the court received no reply. The prosecutor said that I could ask for a corporate convergence and send the company lawyer -or- return another day with the driver [leased operator]...

When we returned he was sworn in and had to testify that he dared to drive on the highways of NY with a broken spring and plead guilty.

They had a bunch of truckers intermingled with criminal cases...made the driver feel real good to be there watching some of the 'criminals' being handcuffed and led off.....

NOTE: New York will chase after anyone reporting NY miles to IFTA without a HUT account...

I had a bill for $1,200.00 based on the highest weight class. After filing the missing returns, based on the box trucks doing 75% of the NY miles and we ended up paying around $500.00 instead.

 

I would have sworn that I read that HUT was declared unconstitutional by a court earlier this year, something about you can't create an additional tax that impedes interstate commerce. I'll have to dig up the article

 

http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=cbfc3cb6-702e-4c2e-94ab-cc39457b4e96

 

That case was because they were charging in-state companies a different fee than out-of-state companies. HUT itself was not being challenged.