I am getting my first truck with my own authority,and was wondering if there are some good programs,software,etc. out there to help me with doing my own reporting?
fuel and highway use reporting programs
Discussion in 'Trucker Taxes and Truck Financing' started by johnny317, Jul 24, 2009.
-
-
Trucking Jobs in 30 seconds
Every month 400 people find a job with the help of TruckersReport.
-
I have tried a few and I liked promiles the best but its not cheap ($893)
-
Don't believe anyone that tells you or wants to sell you something for this. One truck is so easy it is not worth hiring someone or buying any program.
The hardest thing about this is keeping track of your weekly miles traveled in each state.
You could enter the miles and the fuel purchased in any old spreadsheet program. You probably have one that came with your computer.
Get ahold of an IFTA report and spend 5 minutes reading it. If you can add subtract and multiply you can do it all with nothing more than a calculator and a notebook. Here is what you will need to keep track of.
1. total Gal of fuel used/purchased
2. total Gal of fuel Used/purchased in each state
3. total miles traveled
4. total miles traveled by state
You simply take the total miles traveled and divide that by the total gallons purchased.
That gives you your average mile per gallon.
The basic principle is you must buy enough fuel in each state for the amount of miles you travel in that state.
So when you add up your miles in the state and divide them by your average mile per Gallon you have the amount of gallons you should have purchased from that state.
The ifta report simply balances this out and divides your taxes up to each individual state based on who should get what. Of course if you buy to much fuel in a cheap road tax state you may end up owing on your return.
It is really very basic and really easy to do.
trust me save your money for something you can't do so painlessly. Like an engine repair.
Good luck -
Try searching the web for Prophesy Webmiler (yes, with an "s"). The basic service is free, and gives you a breakdown of miles in each state on your trip. This makes it easy to plug in your trips at the end of the quarter when you do your returns, without having to write down your mileage while driving. You still need to keep track of your fuel receipts like eaglebridge said, and I'm with him on it being easy. It will make sense when you do it the first time.
eloy and OOWife_Kay Thank this.
Trucking Jobs in 30 seconds
Every month 400 people find a job with the help of TruckersReport.