IFTA, How?

Purchasing fuel in each state is not practable, though. On a run from Birmingham, AL to St. Louis, MO I could fuel in AL, TN, KY and IL, or I can just buy enough fuel in IL, which has the highest tax rate and cover the fuel taxes in the other states.

 

Bullhaulerswife, when hubby was OTR, approx how long would you spend doing paperwork a week or month?

 

Here are some clarifications on the technology parts:

A. Any Rand GPS up to the 710 model will track the miles driven in each state (when it is powered on naturally. I have to add that because I have had the question of whether it tracks when plugged in but not actually on.)

B. The Rand 720 and the Garmin 560 GPS models with ALSO allow you to enter your fuel purchases at the pump and therefore will allow for a state-by-state gallons/dollars report in addition to the state-by-state mileage report. These reports are then "extractable" to a computer for use with MS Excel or OpenOffice, etc. spreadsheets.

C. There are multiple smartphone apps popping up that do IFTA tracking and calculations with varying degrees of effectiveness. If you are an Android or iPhone/iPad type of person then searching the phone app stores for IFTA keywords can lead you to some choices there.

D. The traditional way has been mentioned: keep an accurate log of your odometer readings when you cross state lines manually. Some use a clipboard and some use a voice recorder to record them verbally.

E. All of the above methods work but have the limitations of human error like forgetting to write down mileage or to turn on a device, or experience a device failure.

F. The most "fire-and-forget" mileage tracking method is to have a tracker on the truck that is always on and has a web-interface back-end such that you can log on an get a mileage and travels history for the entire quarter. There are many of these available out there. QualComm and PeopleNet are probably the most well-known, but not the least expensive.

G. Mileage that is tracked via satellite (GPS) tends to be slightly different than truck odometer miles because the truck speedometer can often be a mile or two off because of tire diameter and other mechanical factors. Satellite mileage will normally be more exact because it is unaffected by mechanical variances of the truck.

 

Correct, no need for IFTA or IRP for Intrastate carriers, nor federal authority ie MC#. Depending on the state, they might require a USDOT # however (FL does).

As far as buying in every state, that is not the best advice. Pre-IFTA, unless you had a lot of cash available to file returns and wait for refunds, it was the way to go. With IFTA, you're looking for the cheapest fuel pretax as possible. Who cares if you have to pay a $500 quarterly return if you're buying the cheapest fuel possible. If you would have paid that tax at the pump, you still would have paid the same amount of tax, and obviously paid more for the fuel pretax. If the state with the lowest pretax fuel price happens to have the largest tax as well, you might end up getting a $500 refund for the quarter if you fuel there regularly.

 

This is the best advice regarding IFTA I have heard people get. Most are so focused on not paying at the end of the quarter rather than focus on getting the best price for fuel. What you pay is what you pay for Fuel Tax. It seems to me that people that fuel in each state they travel in are the ones that don't understand how IFTA works and just want to avoid a big tax bill.

 

Give yourself, errr, hubby a gift of a GPS and then IFTA is just downloading from GPS every quarter.

 

I've been doing it that way and it's wrong. I do always buy as much fuel in IL but beyond that things get confusing when you toss states like IN and KY in the mix. Plus I've been told different things from different people about fuel tax from state to state, some of the info good some not. Suppose the only real way to learn is quit being lazy and do it myself. There doesn't seem to be any "manual" or FAQ out there on it with any detail to it.

 

In ITS run the route you are taking and look at the fuel stops. They will tell all the way to the right what the cost is AFTER tax. That is the number you want to be looking at.

NOTE: This does not account for any discount but gives you a good idea what we are talking about.

 

I quoted these parts, as my main concern is data quality and passing muster at a potential audit. These points bear that out. I use Garmin 560LMT gps units. I do not use the jurisdiction reports for these reasons.

On the mileage variance, we minimize this by truing up the virtual gps odometer every few trips by updating the odometer field on the truck profile with actual. When the Garmins start up, there is a dialogue that comes up making this pretty effortless. 2-3 times a week seems to be a decent interval. The variance appears added/subtracted to the current trip segment in the trip table. So yes, I am defaulting to the less precise miles displayed on the truck odo. My opinion is that if an auditor decides to have a look, I will be better off if the start/end odometer readings on my reports agree with what's displaying in the dashboards.

The Garmins and I'm sure most other gps units lose their mind once in a while. A Garmin will just lock up about once or twice a year for no good reason. They usually start right back up, worst case you might have to pull the battery for a few seconds to reset. The result is that trip segment disappears. At the end of the quarter, I pull the trip reports into a spreadsheet. Getting the difference between trip segments makes it easy to spot and reconstruct one that's missing. It also helps me spot times where a driver may have moved the truck without turning the unit on, or been off the truck and had it in their luggage to accidentally turn on and track a bogus trip. Once I'm satisfied with the detailed trip tables, I use spreadsheet formulas to create my own jurisdiction report.

At the end of the quarter it takes me between 30-60 minutes to produce my return. Probably more work than I really need to do. But at the end of the quarter, I'm more satisfied the results are as close to audit capable as actually burdening the drivers to manually record odo readings at state line crossings. Which can produce errors once in a while too.