It’s September, are you prepared to file your IFTA next month? If this question makes you cringe, create an account, connect your ELD, upload a fuel statement, and instantly generate an IFTA report. We’re offering our IFTA solution free of charge in Q3 if you create a Kamion account before the November 2, 2021 deadline (fill out the request a demo form at the bottom to have someone reach out to set up an account for you). If you’re unsure how this can help your business keep reading to learn more about why you’re owed money and how to get it.
IFTA stands for International Fuel Tax Agreement. The state in which you fuel up assigns that tax to you because it assumes you are using it in state. This of course doesn’t take into account that you may fuel in Chicago and drive through several states before your next stop in Los Angeles. In this scenario, Illinois is required to give back some of the tax you paid since you did not use all of the fuel there. Enter IFTA– it makes sure that states are paid only what they’re owed: for the fuel used for miles driven in state.
While IFTA gives back money to carriers, it doesn’t make it easy. Carriers need to track gallons of fuel purchased per state and miles driven per state and this information comes from different sources. Five years ago, IFTA miles were impossible to organize, but good ELD providers (like Samsara and Keep Truckin’) now provide a state mile report broken out by truck and state. Even still, state gallon tables need to be combined with the state mile tables, which is a complicated and not always accurate Excel exercise.
Some carriers opt to use their fuel cards to keep track of these data points. They pull a report with all gallons purchased for the quarter, but it doesn’t take into account how the funds are distributed across the mix of owner operators and company drivers that most small companies have.
You may be asking ‘all of this for a feature that will be used four times a year?’ The answer: yes–wrong reporting can result in audits and fines and potential revoking of trucking authority.
We believe you should have everything you need to scale your fleet in one place:
About Kamion
We are logistics lifers obsessed with making carrier lives easier through technology. We give small and mid-sized fleets access to the First Digital Carrier Platform so they can make sense and actually use their own data to improve operations. This means easy planning, zero-effort tracking, stress-free dispatching, no more safety headaches, and dedicated Carrier Consultants to guide you along the way. For more information, please visit: kamion.io.