Questions about Oregon Highway $2000 Surety bond

When I was running OTR, I ran big tanks and fueled in the cheapest states, and just paid the taxes in others.
I always figured that I came out ahead, and I never bought a dimes worth in Cali if I could help it, nor even a bag og potato chips. lol

You are 100% correct, not sure why I was calling it a fuel tax, I generally paid the least miles possible and crossed the river at the first chance I had\, I would fuel at arrowhead and go north into washington from there just to keep from paying them. lol

I never ran into this, and I would have to get more than 5 a year just for my truck, I had one who lived in boise and he wound up in oregon quite a bit , aand I never had to get a permanent account for him.

 

You’re misunderstanding how IFTA works. For someone who only travels in OR and CA, only buying fuel in OR means you will owe more at the end of the IFTA quarter. This does not mean you are losing money. Now, if you only buy your fuel in CA, then you will receive a refund from IFTA. I believe it is best to get a zero-interest loan from the government than the other way around.

When I buy fuel, I actually don’t worry about how much I will owe or how much the government will owe me. I buy fuel where it is the cheapest and with the IFTA tax removed. It turns out, I always owe IFTA. I owed about $150 for 2018 Q4; about $100 for 2019 Q1; and about $125 for 2019 Q2.

 

@starmac I couldn’t avoid it during the fall when I was hauling cattle. The buyer I was tied up with had a fair amount of work coming out of OR back to the Midwest. I had a 52ft spread axle and could legally gross 86k and in OR I was paying the same mileage rate as the guys running 105k gross on 7 axles.

 

I'm not misunderstanding it. I was trying to explain to him what would happen if he only filled up in Oregon while running that lane. I fuel in CA all of the time and my IFTA bill has never been over $100. California is kind of an exception on IFTA when buying fuel because there simply isn't cheap fuel anywhere in the state. I've seen a price difference of as much as $2.00 per gallon between OR and CA. That's on top of all of the other taxes and fees we pay for being based here.

 

While it is true that fueling in CA will reduce how much you will owe after your IFTA quarterly filing, it will not reduce your total fuel taxes at all. The difference will be paying less fuel taxes at the pump, but more fuel taxes at the end of your IFTA quarterly filing.

It’s not about the amount you should have purchased. Last I heard that was many years ago. Now you can purchase fuel anywhere you want. There are no penalties. IFTA apparently was introduced to fix this problem.

By the way, IFTA deals with the gallons burned per state, and it applies to (almost) all states. So CA has nothing to do with this. Their fuel taxes are just very high.

 

If you want to really save money, do not fuel in CA. Yes, you will owe more at the end of your IFTA quarterly filing, but you will ultimately not lose money. As I said before, your total fuel taxes will be the same regardless of how much fuel taxes you pay at the pump. Now, the cost of fuel can be reduced by fueling where it is cheapest. Always shop for fuel with the IFTA tax removed.

 

[QUOTE="PE_Trans, post: 9412721, member: 200868"]While it is true that fueling in CA will reduce how much you will owe after your IFTA quarterly filing, it will not reduce your total fuel taxes at all. The difference will be paying less fuel taxes at the pump, but more fuel taxes at the end of your IFTA quarterly filing.
It’s not about the amount you should have purchased. Last I heard that was many years ago. Now you can purchase fuel anywhere you want. There are no penalties. IFTA apparently was introduced to fix this problem.

By the way, IFTA deals with the gallons burned per state, and it applies to (almost) all states. So CA has nothing to do with this. Their fuel taxes are just very high.[/QUOTE]

I was giving a simplified explanation as an example because he had a question. If I was interested in semantics, I would have just copy and pasted the IFTA guidelines for him to read himself.

I hate to break it to you but it still works that way for those of us lucky enough to work primarily out of California, and we do get penalized for not buying enough of our fuel here for the number of miles traveled. My first quarter as an O/O I learned this the hard way. I bought most of my fuel in Oregon, Washington and Nevada, and owed IFTA nearly $1,000 because of how little fuel I bought in CA. They always have their own set of rules in California which is why most drivers hate coming here.

 

Every otr company I worked for. Didn't want us fueling in California.

The last company. Was only California and back. 2 trips every week.

 

You say you understand how IFTA works, but your comments say otherwise. Really, man. Watch the video I posted earlier. You are not saving on fuel taxes by fueling in CA. It doesn’t make a difference in which state you fuel when it comes to paying fuel taxes. It’s all sorted out through IFTA. What absolutely will save you money is NOT fueling in CA. Their fuel cost is usually off the charts. You’ll thank me later.

 

He’s based out of CA and they could very well have different state rules for companies based there. I have a friend who lives there and for the first quarter or six months (I can’t recall which for sure) a certain percentage of his miles have to be outside of CA to avoid paying a bunch of sales tax on a new truck. So I could very well see them having their own requirements if you’re based there.