Trying to grasp how fuel tax and ifta works.

OMG I am going to make myself even more grey then I already am lol.

So I am trying to educate myself on how to figure out where the cheapest fuel is including the whole tax thing. I only run Washington, Oregon, and Cali so it shouldn't be too hard. I know that Oregon does not do the IFTA and charges a per mile tax, but Cali and Washington are charging .445 and .45 per gallon. Obviously I found the IFTA tax table. I will continue reading into it and trying to get a hand on how it works, but any pointers would be appreciated. I am great with visual examples (hint hint). I am just wanting to do what I can to help out with cutting down costs for my employer while also learning how this business works. I eventually want to go O/O.

 

Thank you. I saw something about only getting the fuel you need in that state. What is your opinion on that?

 

Last week I was in LA and the gas at the TA was 2.86 per gal. I had to stop at a small mom and pop station off the 710 to weigh and their fuel was 2.45 per gal. what a difference. In Oregon it was 2.74 at the petro in Phoenix. Too bad my company doesn't want me fueling at mom and pop places.

 

From what I gathered in my reading today it looked like it was a little more complicated then just deducting the ifta amount of the pump price. It was saying something about taking the mileage you ran in the state and dividing it by your MPG then multiplying it by the states ifta tax rate and that was how much you would have to pay. So if you ran 800 miles in the state that day and fueled 118 gallons, but were getting 6.5 MPG it would look something like this.

118 x .45 = 53.10 Tax paid

800 / 6.5 = 123.07 gallons used

123.07 x .45 = 55.38 Tax owed

If my calculations are correct my trip for that day I would have owed .28 in fuel tax. I may be over thinking it but once I take some time to go through it thoroughly I am sure I will get it. I guess now that I am looking at it I am more trying to keep track of what my tax pay out would be over finding out what is the cheaper fuel. I guess if I was an O/O I would want to keep track of this. The more I learn and can do myself the less I need to pay someone else to do for me. It's all about saving money after all.

 

That is a good point and I will keep it in mind. I think I will have to put a bug in my bosses ear and see if I can find out what our fuel discounts are so I can start getting used to planning my fuel routing. That is one thing I like about my company, no fuel routing. Just fuel at TA, Petro, Pilot, or Flying J.