Estelle and Leon have been on the road for a few years, and alternated sweating out the IFTA tax forms. She’d do them one quarter and he’d check them, and the next quarter, they’d switch. Let’s just say that one of them is not so good at copying numbers and the other has to take off his socks to add. At least, that’s what they told me when they looked at TruckingOffice.
IFTA Numbers Game
How many numbers do you think you enter into the IFTA forms, either in ink or in an online form?
How easy is it to get them wrong?
We know the challenges that drivers face with filling out the IFTA forms. There are two major issues: copying and the math. That’s why a lot of owner operators use spreadsheets to do the math. But if the numbers aren’t right in the first place, no amount of math is going to make any difference.
Estelle’s problem is always about the numbers. She’d read a 1 as a 7 and then spend an hour trying to figure out where she went wrong. “Such a simple mistake,” she says. After hours of copying numbers from log books and trying to reconstruct what miles were empty and which trips went through West Virginia (she swears she’s giving up taking I-70 on her Philadelphia to Indianapolis lane) it’s an easy mistake to make. Getting her routes done for her and her numbers automatically calculated sold her on TruckingOffice.
Leon disagrees about his math skills. He’s just constantly frustrated by all the different formulas. “This state’s got one fuel tax rate and that state has another, and my spreadsheets get messed up. One quarater we had a single load to Iowa. I completely forgot about it.”
Some states let truckers file online, some only let you file online and some let you fill out an online PDF and mail it in. Leon found himself in trouble last year when he screwed up the filing. He’s pretty sure he paid double what he should have to one state, leading to a severe cash crunch when they needed to buy fuel to get back to Maryland.
Welcome to TruckingOffice’s New IFTA Form Features
TruckingOffice’s new IFTA features make the IFTA easier than ever. Depending on the jurisdiction, truckers have options how to fill out the forms. TruckingOffice has now got all the states’ forms online and ready to be filled out with the numbers already crunched for you. No need to add, multiply or check. If you’re working with a state that wants you to file online, it’s just a matter of cut and paste. The numbers go right into the form and you’re done. If they want a PDF printed out, we’ve got it. Sign the form (and the check) and mail.
Leon and Estelle signed up. “It’s worth it not to have the fights.”
When are you filling out your IFTA forms?
January 31 is the deadline for filing your taxes for the last quarter of 2015. Maybe this is your reminder that you need to get started working on that. Maybe this is the blog post you’re going to try to forget – along with your IFTA until the last possible moment. Or maybe this is the time for you to consider trying TruckingOffice trucking management software. You can start a free month’s use today, enter all of your trips from last quarter and see how fast you can finish filing out your IFTA forms.
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