IFTA reporting accurate?

During an ifta audit the main thing they are looking for is where you bought fuel. You can be off but if they want to take a good look you will be surprised at how much they know about you. Area 51 is where they did the research. They have some alien stuff. Apparently, the aliens were big on taxing the space craft for which galaxies they traveled through.

Get a Garmin and keep track of it that way. Very easy to do.

 

P.S. Some of our posters are smart alecks
I won't claim to be one though. Way too many here are better than I am.

 

If you are audited they will ask for trip records that must show the starting and ending mileage of each trip associated by the truck odometer readings. If they see gaps, they will ask questions. The trip reports are supposed to show the route taken also so they can determine mileage per state. If you are off a bit here and there because you forgot to write the number down but you made your best estimate, they will correct it, that is no big deal. A complete missing trip will make them dig deeper.

If you have a fuel card they will want to see all the transactions. You should be downloading them quarterly for this reason. They may also ask to see the truck stop print out receipts. It can be argued you don't need to keep these receipts - it can also be argued the fuel card data can be easily manipulated, especially if it is in HTML form when you download it. The truck stop print out receipt is much more difficult to manipulate. They may even get the fuel card records directly from whoever your fuel card company is.

They can go back up to 4 years for IFTA audits. They are looking for the people that are cheating the system. If you do it honestly and to your best effort, they aren't going to hammer you. If they find you are trying to cheat the system, they have the power to reduce your average MPG to 4.0 and therefore you are going to owe a lot in fuel tax - plus penalty. I imagine at this point they will ask to see all 4 years worth.

 

Fairly large trucking companies have been put into bankruptcy because of IFTA audits. As has already been said, everybody makes mistakes and they will work with you on that but if they think you are trying to scam the system or are just being lazy, they can charge you tax on every gallon of fuel you purchased. That can equal thousands of dollars.

I've been through a audit. While I didn't do the record keeping exactly like the statue says, it was still accurate. They told me to keep doing what I was doing. They are just mainly wanting to make sure you take it serious and try to make sure every state gets their share.

 

Bol's and fuel receipts required to be kept for 7 years for income tax records.

Drastic change in fuel mileage,flags for an audit. Did you report the fuel and not the miles? Did you use a fuel card.
Report the income for this trip?

There are a lot of ways to get caught not reporting miles. None are cheap if your caught.

Why not just report the miles. You can file an amended report.
You don't want to log the hours for your private use of your truck?
Miles are miles you should report them.

With all that said. I doubt big brother is going to audit for a few hundred miles.
10's of thousands yes.

They will make it expensive.

 

Personally I think my audit was prompted by a stink I caused at the state motor carrier office. I can't prove it but it was really a coincidence. Their official statement was they are required to do so many audits a year at random as part of being in the IFTA program.

They were jacking me around with issuing tags, a friend of the family is a state rep, and after explaining to him their incompetence, he threatened the dept with a congressional inquiry. After that they bent over backwards to get me satisfied but the next year I got a audit. You be the judge.

 

Where there's smoke, there's fire.
I'll agree.

 

If you forget to write down a run, your fuel mileage will be off-and they will question that. Been there, done that.