IFTA question

Your fuel card doesn’t show you the pretax price? It’s the only price that matters.

 

Buying in states that have the lowest rack price (actual cost of diesel, regardless of IFTA tax) will save the most money, even if you owe taxes at the end of the quarter.

You get that, but so many still don't.

 

I’ve thought about doing that, but those pumps may have been calibrated using one of the three pump pressure settings on the handle.

 

As others have mentioned, remove the IFTA tax from the pump price, and then compare fuel prices. Do not remove the fuel surcharge tax in the states of KY and VA. Another one used to be IN, but they no longer have a fuel surcharge.

If you use NASTC, their app automatically gives you the pump price and the price without the IFTA tax. Otherwise, you can do this manually by using these charts.

IFTA, Inc.

 

I'm based in California and drive through Oregon weekly where fuel is around $1,25-$1.60 per gallon cheaper and no IFTA or sales taxes in Oregon, but they do have a .20 cents per mile road tax. Even with the .70 cent per gallon IFTA tax in California, I still save a bit buying most of my fuel in Oregon. I'll top off in Cali once a week to offset the IFTA somewhat, but it usually works out pretty good.

 

I bought 5300 gallons of fuel in the 3rd QTR 2020 on 32,400 miles, out of which 2,430 gallons in Illinois alone. The result is quite a nice refund of $350... I guess this is a nice little reward for paying attention to what the fuel price is after fuel tax. Even though Illinois has competitive pump prices as compared to its neighboring states, it is still so much cheaper after the fuel tax is subtracted.
Now I wonder if they send me a refund check or apply credit towards next quarters...I'll call them next week and ask.

 

In the past they have rolled over any credit I had to the next quarter.
At the end of the year they usually settle up.

 

Good to know.... because I was thinking that if this quarter is not any different than the last, they would owe me a little too much to be carried over onto 2021. Most of the time, I owed them between $100-300 per quarter.