Choosing the right trucking software can be complicated, especially when it comes to finding software to report your IFTA fuel and mileage tax amounts and it needs to be accurate and timely. Calculating IFTA Tax can be a headache for many trucking companies, each quarter, so worrying that they will not file on time or risk being fined for missing something. It is important to feel confident the IFTA information you file with IFTA is backed by real data.
Below is a brief description of what IFTA is and further down, how TMS Digital IFTA Manager software helps you with automated, accurate, and easy fuel tax reporting.
You may have asked “What is IFTA and what does IFTA mean? It stands for International Fuel Tax Association, Inc., more commonly known as IFTA, Inc., and it is an Arizona not-for-profit corporation formed to manage and administer the International Fuel Tax Agreement.
What is IFTA reporting and why do I have to do it?
Below is a brief history. Quoting from the IFTA Best Practices Page.
“Prior to the formation of the IFTA, each state had its own licensing and fuel use tax reporting system. Because of lack of a coordinated system left carriers to maneuver multiple systems for their licensing needs. Each jurisdiction into which a carrier traveled required a license and fuel tax filings. Many required the carriers to display a jurisdictional decal. A carrier could be audited by any or all jurisdictions into which it traveled.
In 1983, a tax collection process loosely based on the International Registration Plan was developed so as to collect and distribute fuel taxes. Each jurisdiction would be responsible for licensing, renewals, tax reporting, and auditing its registered licensees. Benefits to jurisdictions and licensees included the management by one jurisdiction of a single license, decal, and a consolidated audit process. Arizona, Iowa, Washington were the initial jurisdictions to sign on. Over the next three years, a working group modified the Agreement which was adopted by the membership as IFTA. By the end of 1996, the lower 48 states and 10 Canadian provinces became members.”
You must apply
If you are based in a member jurisdiction and operate a qualified motor vehicle in 2 or more member jurisdictions, yes. If you usually operate your vehicles only in one jurisdiction but make occasional trips outside the base jurisdiction, so you may elect to purchase trip permits for that occasional travel. Permitting services can usually be contacted from any major truck stop. Contact a permitting service for rates.
How to apply
You should contact the jurisdiction where your company is based. Your base jurisdiction is the jurisdiction where you have your qualified motor vehicles registered, where you have some travel, and where the operational control and operational records are maintained or can be made available.
Resources
It is important to keep up with tax rate changes.
To get the latest IFTA tax rates, go to: IFTA Tax Rates
To read more about IFTA Best practices, download their official PDF
If you know what IFTA is and how and why you have to apply for it, but still have questions. How do you go about this? How do you report it? What is the easiest, most cost-efficient way to gather data to calculate it? That is where TMS Digital IFTA Manager Software comes in.
IFTA Reporting software
Here is why TMS Digital IFTA Manager is the best IFTA reporting software. IFTA Manager IFTA fuel tax software offers a process to automate the gathering of actual data, like your fuel card transactions and your truck’s ELD GPS Tracking data, marrying it together to create trips that record both your fuel purchases and the miles driven in each state. We will setup processes to download fuel card data, truck’s computer data and save it on a secure server. Then, easily import that data into our IFTA Manager program.
Based on the truck number and purchase date, the fuel is matched with the ELD GPS data. Reports are easily prepared based on this information in order to calculate your fuel tax. The reports rely on calculations that can be downloaded directly from IFTA, but this is yet another simple step embedded within the IFTA Manager application. We also provide troubleshooting reports, such as an Uncommitted Transaction report that identifies fuel that was unable to be matched to a trip. This can happen if you have older trucks without computers or if you drive beyond of the GPS range of your computer.
The icing on the cake? IFTA Manager is hosted on secure servers located here in the United States. These servers are backed up and protected from malware and viruses. You have 24/7 IT support and quick response times from your software technicians.
Contact us today for a free demo!
