Q1 2016 IFTA Fuel Tax Preparation

We hope everyone is off to a great 2016! As of April 1, 2016, IFTA Plus can prepare your first quarter 2016 IFTA fuel tax return.

If you already have an account with IFTA Plus, sign in and start entering your miles and fuel or if you’ve already entered everything you can file today!  If not, our registration process takes only a minute and we walk you through each step of how to prepare and file your IFTA taxes.  You don’t have to pay for anything until you are ready to print out your state IFTA fuel tax return.

To complete your return, you will need to collect your miles driven and fuel purchased in each State between January 1 and March 31.

As always, feel free to Contact Us if you need further assistance.

Safe Driving…

Q4 2015 IFTA Fuel Tax Preparation

Happy New Year! We hope you had a great safe and successful 2015. As of Jan 1, 2016, IFTA Plus can prepare your fourth quarter 2015 IFTA fuel tax return.

If you already have an account with IFTA Plus, sign in and start entering your miles and fuel or if you’ve already entered everything you can file today!  If not, our registration process takes only a minute and we walk you through each step of how to prepare and file your IFTA taxes.  You don’t have to pay for anything until you are ready to print out your state IFTA fuel tax return.

To complete your return, you will need to collect your miles driven and fuel purchased in each State between October 1 and December 31.

As always, feel free to Contact Us if you need further assistance.

Safe Driving…

IFTA fuel taxes and the state of the economy

IFTA Plus has helped thousands of companies prepare their fuel tax returns for the past 5 years.  As we capture company mileage and fuel usage across different quarters, we are in a unique position of being able to determine how much companies are driving quarter over quarter and where they are driving most.  For those not in the transportation industry, the two critical pieces of information IFTA fuel taxes capture are the number of miles driven in each state and the amount of fuel purchased in each state.

The trucking industry is a well tracked indicator of the state of the overall economy.  When the economy is good, manufacturing increases, purchasing increases, shipping increases and therefore the transportation industry improves.  There are several metrics tracked in the industry including the monthly tonnage.  Several blogs talk about the reality of a changing industry driven by a slow economy.  Other writers like to speculate on the future state of the economy.

Here at IFTA Plus, we put together a few simple charts that compare where miles are being driven and how companies are performing.

State mileage changes: This chart shows the difference in miles per state between Q1 2010 and Q4 2010.

You can see that states in the East increased miles driven and states in the West decreased in miles driven.

Company mileage changes.  This graph shows how companies performed quarter over quarter.

This graph shows in Q4 2010, only 46% of returning IFTA Plus companies increased their miles driven over the previous quarter.  In fact, to summarize this chart, here are the percentages of companies that increased their miles driven vs the previous quarter:

Q1 2008 – 59%
Q2 2008 – 60%
Q3 2008 – 47%
Q4 2008 – 42%
Q1 2009 – 45%
Q2 2009 – 62%
Q3 2009 – 52%
Q4 2009 – 46%
Q1 2010 – 49%
Q2 2010 – 63%
Q3 2010 – 48%
Q4 2010 – 46%

We’re not economists and we don’t give any indications that our data is a diverse and representative cross section of the trucking industry.  However, the number are interesting to look through.

Daniel Audet’s TruckStar Broadcast

For those of you out there who have never listened to Daniel Audet’s online TruckStar radio show, you are missing out. Daniel provides keen insight into the issues facing truckers, the transportation industry, and life in general.  His easy to listen to voice, ability to create informational conversations by himself, and willingness to allow anyone to call in live on his show make for an unpredictable and enjoyable experience.

I thank Daniel for letting (and listening to)  me talk away last night about IFTA and IFTA Plus software.   The next evening you have some time, do yourself a favor and tune in.   Daniel is on every night 8-11 pm EST.  To watch and chat live at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/”the-truckstar-live”.  To listen, goto http://thetruckstar.com/listen. The radio show call in number is 954-376-8452.  You can also check out pieces of Daniel’s life at his ever popular blog at www.thetruckstar.com
“It’s definitely not the kind of talk radio grandpa listens to”

– Stuart Ludlow