buying cheaper fuel.

Here's one. Only buy what fuel you will actually burn rolling through GA if you need to get it there. Anything over that amount of fuel you purchase there - they will keep the extra tax money they made off of you for themselves... You won't get credit for it to apply towards tax in other states as is usually the case.

My flying by the seat of the pants method of fueling has served me ok for a while. Pay an average of $100 per quarterI'd always try to purchase at least some fuel in every state I drove through. Works ok.. Lucky for me I am through IL quiet often now I like to burn it all out before I get here and always top off here again before leaving here whether I need the fuel or not. Also a lot of fueling in TN because I roll a lot of miles there.

 

If you're talking about sales tax, a lot of states do that. The road tax in GA gets shifted around on IFTA just like every other state. The cheapest fuel I've been seeing at retail is in MO and OK, but only OK is a deal tax-wise. However, buy a lot in OK and burn it somewhere else and your IFTA settlement will increase due to the higher taxes elsewhere.

My IFTA settlement on 7588 gal last quarter was $36. About the only substantially higher tax state we're in a lot is NC. Since we usually end up buying fuel there too, the hit on IFTA isn't too bad.

 

Ok, so that crusty old o/o was just ratchet jawing? I really need to do my own homework on ifta. I trust you guys around here when you comment on these things I can take it to the bank. Not so much the random stuff you hear otr .....

 

Probably a grain of truth to the story, just not having to do with IFTA. I've also heard GA fuel is more expensive when considering the actual cost to the carrier versus what's displayed on the pump. There's software out there to exploit the differences if you have the time and the notion to get that clever with your fuel planning. I just haven't got the mental bandwidth to add that to my workload yet.

 

I just got fuel at Flying Hook in LaSalle, IL for around 2.92 a gallon after you factor out fuel tax. That stop has had some kind of fuel war going on. I regularly get anywhere from 30-40 cents off the cash pump price. Nice thing in all this, is that Illinois has a high fuel tax, so there is always money coming back.

 

In my personal opinion messing around with IFTA and which pump is a penny or two cheaper is a little over the top for a one or two truck operation. The big fleets will see huge differences in saving 5cents per gallon but for us little guys there are much better things to worry about. Think about this lets say we take reds 7588 gallon quarter and assume the pump down the road can save you 5 cents. thats a savings of about 380 dollars for three months this sounds great at first but broken down you are saving a little over 4 dollars per day. Now lets just say that you have a fuel cost of around 50 CPM if that station is more than 4 miles off route (which is very easy for some of the smaller stations) you have burned every dollar you saved. However even if you get lucky and the cheaper station is right across from the big one how much more difficult will it be to get into it? How much longer will it take to fuel, I have fueled at some of the everyday stations and found that it takes up to 15min to fuel one tank, then flip the truck around to get the other tank. Will it be more of a pain to get a reciept with the gallons on it. I have found that some of the people that work the smaller stations are not used to doing this and have no idea what to do. These are all things to take into consideration, of course after all this you can get into the issues of fuel quality. For reference at 20 cents per gallon the numbers are not much better you are looking at 16 dollars per day and anything over 16 miles from normal route is costing you money. As a side note on the ifta once again in my opinion unless you have multiple trucks it isn't worth the time to deal with it. The tax is going to come out the same EVERYTIME no matter what if you buy the fuel in the cheap state and burn it in the expensive state you owe the expensive state, if you buy in the expensive state and burn it in the cheap state the expensive state owes you. Either way you end up paying the same its just a question of now or later. Think of it of an interest free loan for either you or the states. Either way this is a huge headache for a 30 dollar interest free loan over a 3 month period?

 

I used to fuel at a Speedway station a while ago. Back when they had a rewards program where after accumulating 10,000 points you got a free fill up of up to 22 gallons of unleaded. I would have 20,000 in 1 week so needless to say it was WELL worth it. they stopped that program a year later......sure hope it wasn't because of me LOL

 

Buy all your fuel in IL and you will always have a refund coming back. Just don't fuel around Chicago due to higher prices. DO NOT fuel in Indiana as you will ALWAYS owe money to IFTA

 

Unless you pull for a carrier like I do that pays the fuel tax for you and does not charge it back.