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If you are new to the world of trucking, you might be trying to figure out the complicated IFTA requirements. You may have asked, “Why do I need IFTA and why do I pay taxes to other states?” The short answer is because… It is because you are running heavy vehicles over different states and/or jurisdictions, which causes wear and tear to their roads. Someone has to pay for that. International Fuel Tax AgreementThe International Fuel Tax Agreement (IFTA), is a tax collection agreement by and among the 48 contiguous states and Canadian provinces, bordering the United States, to simplify the reporting and collection of motor fuel use IFTA fuel tax when a motor carrier operates in more than one jurisdiction. People who operate qualified motor vehicles are subject to IFTA licensing. IFTA defines a "qualified motor vehicle" as:
- A vehicle having two axles and a gross vehicle weight or registered gross vehicle weight exceeding 26,000 pounds or 11,797 kilograms;
- A vehicle having three or more axles regardless of weight;
- When the weight exceeds 26,000 pounds or 11,797 kilograms gross vehicle or registered gross vehicle weight;
- When the vehicle is not a recreational vehicle.
*** Fun Fact: A highway system began to take shape in order to accommodate the growing number of motor vehicles on the road, in the years before World War I.. That is when states and/or jurisdictions started collecting fees for motor vehicle licenses to fund the construction and maintenance of these new highways. In 1986, IFTA, as we know it today was formed.
As an applications specialists, we work with dispatchers every day, to make sure our TMS product is running smoothly and that our clients get the information they need. We understand how critical it is to track and always know the status of each load. How important it is for you to know where your equipment and assets are, at all times. That it is a high priority to never let any billing slip through the cracks. Moreover, to pay drivers on time and for the correct amount (you do not want a mad spouse calling you)! And, of course, to be able to give your boss the reports he needs to make important decisions.
We especially understand how important it is to you to have software that you can count on, with little or no downtime and technical support that is there for you. We know! Because we have been in your shoes!
Have you ever wondered about what it would be like to be in our shoes? Hmmm.. Maybe not, but I’ll share anyway. It can be fun! It can be stressful! It can be crazy! Sometimes, you may have routine calls that you can answer with your eyes closed (or by email). Sometimes, you remote into a client’s computer and run into something inexplicable and have to confess that you are not sure what is going on. (Hate those days!). But we ALWAYS do everything in our power to find the answer. Sometimes, you become fast friends with a customer, especially after you have been through the trenches together. Sometimes, you might get yelled at, because someone is having a bad day, or a glitch has caused major downtime. We definitely try to avoid that.
But, most importantly, we take our jobs seriously and take pride in giving you the best support, to keep you happy and your software running smoothly.
TMS Digital has helped trucking companies manage their IFTA reporting for well over 35 years. As the trucking industry has evolved, so have we.
What is IFTA Reporting?
To cite the Arizona Department of Transportation https://azdot.gov/motor-vehicles/motor-carrier-services/international-fuel-tax-agreement-ifta
“The International Fuel Tax Agreement (IFTA) is an agreement between the member jurisdictions (all contiguous states, the District of Columbia and participating Canadian provinces) to simplify the reporting of motor fuel taxes by interstate motor carriers. IFTA reporting significantly reduces the paperwork and standardizes motor fuel tax reporting for both carriers and jurisdictions.
Before adoption of IFTA, motor carriers operating in multiple jurisdictions were required to apply for a license and file and remit their fuel taxes in accordance with each jurisdiction’s laws. Complying with these varied requirements was a difficult and extremely time-consuming process for an interstate carrier.”
In a nutshell, 48 states in the US (with the exception of Hawaii, Alaska and District of Columbia) and ten Canadian provinces require that you report how many miles you have driven through each state, and how much fuel you have purchased, again in each state. You are required to report this information quarterly in order to pay or receive a tax credit. Failure to do so can result in huge fines! The fuel tax you pay is to compensate states for the use of their roads by your heavy equipment. In the past, each state had its own formula for calculating tax due, as well as its own due date. With IFTA, a more uniform system was set in place to make reporting easier.
IFTA Fuel Tax Program
IFTA is not the only one that made reporting easier. TMS Digital’s Mileage and Fuel Tax program, over the last 35 years, has transitioned from our users doing manual entry based on driver’s paperwork to importing fuel directly from your fuel card company and importing odometer readings and miles driven in each state from your ELD and merging them together. And those crazy formulas? Yeah, you can import them, too! Right from the IFTA site. In regards to all that messy paperwork and receipts, you just scan and save the image to your IFTA Manager folders. Then you just highlight your trip and see all of that trip’s backup copy with the push of Image button.
Did your application move to the cloud and now your hosting bills have doubled, tripled, or worse? Cloud vendors charge for resources, all resources. We are a cloud vendor as well; the difference is that we charge based on the entire collection of servers. This one approach results in huge savings for clients. The savings occur because one busy server doesn’t result in an overage cost. If a server for an hour is processing some additional work but the other servers don’t change then the increase in the entire pool is negligible resulting in NO ADDITIONAL COST. No additional communications cost. We also do not charge for the internal server-to-server communication costs. Cloud vendors charge for communications costs, internal server to server communications, and client communication external of the data center. All of this results in unexpected additional invoices. Cloud Migration Costs Are your migration projects dragging on, resulting in projects that seem to extend forever with no end in sight? Migration delays are caused by a lack of understanding of the task. If moving an application, what is interconnected to that application, how to clients connect to the application, what does the application need to run properly? Migration delays occur because of poor planning, inexperience, or a dependency on automated tools instead of understanding the core issues.
The trend of Managed Service Providers (MSPs) is resell cloud services instead of managing technology. We do not believe in forced cloud moves. There is nothing inherently wrong to moving to the cloud but moving does not solve problems – it moves the problems, often times costing resulting in significantly higher costs. Azure and Amazon charge for resources and communications, that means moving a two-server configuration to the cloud will now include the data transmitted between those two servers. Why are MSPs doing this? Because it is easier to become a sales agent for Azure and Amazon then it is to maintain a technology knowledge workforce. Maintaining engineering and support staff can be expensive so many MSPs instead focus on become cloud agents instead of understanding what is in the client’s interest.
What is the result? When an MSP converts to selling cloud services instead of maintaining services the client suffers more outages. The MSP conversion results in a brain drain of skill, a race to the bottom, providing worse and worse service for less, exposing clients by not installing updates, monitoring for problems, advising on issues. MSPs stop focusing on solving problems and start focusing on onboarding new clients.
Communications today is more than a phone number. Unified Communication includes all type of methods used today to communicate; Whiteboard, Chat, VoIP Phone and of course video. We bring together all modern forms of communication under one application and system and under a flat rate price, making communications easier, simpler while saving money. Some expenses that can are no longer needed;
Zoom, Skype Business, or any video meeting system can be eliminated. Fully support for meetings, sharing documents, exchanging ideas and collaboration.
Call forwarding charges, we include a free mobile application, when away from your office there is no need for forwarding calls, simply install the mobile app and answer calls as though you are in your office.
Phones! Yes, it is possible to use our system directly via a laptop, desktop and mobile device, eliminating the need for a desk phone. We fully support desk phones, but you are in control and phones are no required.
Chat, charges for chatting systems like TEAMS, SLACK, Google Chat can be eliminated. No need to pay another vendor for CHAT, it is included in our system. If your organization already is using a chatting system, no problem, our chat, in fact virtually any feature can be disabled and customized, but if you haven’t started to use a chat program or you want to save money our chatting system is included for free.
When installing your iPhone, iPad, iTouch updates make sure iTunes is updated and that the host PC has at least 60 Gig of free disk space.
Start iTunes prior to connecting your device to ensure you are running the latest version.
Without sufficient disk space the backup will fail, potentially meaning you will loose files on your device during the upgrade process.
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