Ifta/irp audit

Tell em you bought farm diesel and ifta doesn't apply.

 

Since you have experience with a audit can you please tell me what records you gave them? Also in what capacity were you acting with this audit? O/O, carrier, safety / operations person? Did you just give them the fuel receipts? IFTA is no joke, too much money for states to overlook. They require you to keep many different receipts, not just fuel.

 

Contrary to popular believe just having a LLC does not totally protect you. Gives you some protection but not full. Believe me your name appears somewhere and its connected to that LLC. Lawyers are not stupid, remember if you started a trucking LLC, especially trucking, you had to sign a bunch of paperwork and fill out a ton of applications. Also sign a stack of agreements and contracts, who do you think came up with the agreements and contracts? yeap you guessed it a lawyer. You can have everything under the LLC's name but remember you have owner or stockholders/shareholders and officers. Someone has to be left holding the bag if things go south. They just don't forgive your debts cause the LLC failed. This is my opinion I am sure others have different.

 

Fuel receipts, odometer readings and trip records. They don't care about HOS, they want to know how many miles you drove in each state,and how much fuel you bought in each state.

If you can't document where you drove your miles, or your fuel purchases, you might want to just bring vaseline...

 

Absolutely..

I'll help you out here.

Yes,Im an Independent carrier, Now..........

You'll Need All your fuel receipts For the Months you are audited- You'll Need your Trip reports- (Where you went etc etc), You'll Need Copies of your quarterly filings for the months you are being audited

Trip reports very important- (Where you were going-Miles traveled,Places you bought fuel etc)

Don't get too worked up about it- Your doing your best- They Know this......If you owe money,You owe money- Simple as that......Its not a big deal- You can actually just drop them off-And when their done they call you

 

I'm not getting worked up, ran for 10 years as O/O last five years ran my own numbers with 8 other trucks under my authority. Just retired, so I don't have a dog in the fight. My prior post said fuel receipts and daily logs. You came back and said this was not a FMCSA audit, and you are right. But if you look at what IFTA requires as proof while under a audit, the daily logs meet all the requirements. Used to be drivers recorded miles once they entered state and once they exited state. ELD does that for us.

https://www.arkansashighways.com/internal_audit/IFTA/Records_Requirements.pdf

 

What's confusing to it, keep accurate records.

That should be your goal.

 

I've been through two ifta audits. Not a big deal if you have good record keeping habits. I had everything pulled and waiting for them when they arrived. Prior ifta returns, detailed fuel purchase reports, and organized trip reports being the main thing. Plus logbooks, bols, invoices and bank deposit records as supporting documents. Was over by lunch time.

With no or less than complete records I would expect them to suspend your ifta account and require a bond to reactivate it.

 

Also,Keep in mind- Your just a 1 truck 1 driver operation,correct?
Contrary to what you read here- Your Small time compared to carriers with dozens/hundreds of trucks-

Believe me, Their not looking to make money off of you- There will be very little to make

They want the Farm guy tucked deep out in the country with 9 trucks/ Or the 1099 guys up in Arlington heights with 6-15 trucks...Or the massive 100-1000 truck carriers......

If they just want to Audit 2 months of IFTA- This shouldn't even be an issue- Show em what you got- And thats it- Dont Worry.

 

I don't know...a guy with messed up trip reports (no odometer readings) and missing some fuel receipts had to pay 5K fine...he had about 5 trucks at the time, not a very organized fellow. The funny thing about that was that he had the audit at his home...his office. A guest comes over to your house for a visit and leaves with 5 grand. That's called hospitality. LOL
Oh...he was leased on at the time...it was Illinois IRP audit.