The folder arrives in the first week of October: fuel receipts in a rubber band, a one-page mileage summary from the truck’s logging app, and a note that the tractor spent most of the quarter in a shop, so there is probably nothing to file. Take that one-truck company as your client. Its third-quarter fuel tax return is due Nov. 2, 2026, and the records an auditor will ask for have a shelf life nobody in the cab has heard of.
A tax with its own calendar
The International Fuel Tax Agreement, or IFTA, lets a carrier file one fuel tax return with the state that licensed it, the base jurisdiction, and that state splits the tax among every state the truck crossed. It reaches any truck over 26,000 pounds, any truck with three or more axles, and any combination over 26,000 pounds, as soon as the truck runs in more than one state.
One return goes to the base state every quarter, due the last day of the following month; when that day is a Saturday, Sunday or legal holiday, the next business day counts (Articles of Agreement R960.100). Returns are required even if no operations were conducted or no taxable fuel was used (R930.100). A parked truck files.
What a missing zero return costs
Nothing owed is not nothing due. For failing to file, filing late or underpaying, the base state may assess $50 or 10% of the delinquent tax, whichever is greater (R1220.100), so a late zero return can cost $50, and the state may add penalties of its own (R1220.300). Where tax is owed, interest runs at 2 percentage points above the IRS underpayment rate, accruing monthly, state by state, with a full month charged for any part of a month (R1230). If the bill is not paid and no written appeal is filed within 30 days of the notice, the base state revokes the license (R1270).
Four years of records, six months of logs
The IFTA Procedures Manual requires a licensee to keep the distance and fuel records behind a return for four years after the return was due or filed, whichever is later (P510). In an audit the burden of proof is on the licensee (P520).
When the records cannot support the return, the auditor does not guess in the client’s favor. If the fleet’s records fail the adequacy test, or none are produced after a written demand, the base state recomputes the fleet at 4.00 miles per gallon or cuts the reported fuel economy by 20% (P570.100), and may still disallow credit for every gallon without a receipt (P570.200). A truck that ran at 6 miles per gallon can be taxed as if it ran at 4.
Federal hours-of-service rules, the limits on how long a driver may drive, pull the other way. A carrier must keep the driver’s records of duty status, the daily logs, and their supporting documents for six months (49 CFR 395.8(k)(1)), plus a back-up copy of the data from the electronic logging device, or ELD, the unit in the cab that records driving time, for six months on a separate device (49 CFR 395.22(i)(1)). The duty sits on the carrier, not the vendor; a client that switches providers can lose year one before the audit letter arrives.
For a GPS-based system, P540.200 wants a reading at least every 10 minutes with the engine on, each with date, time, location, odometer and unit number, delivered as a spreadsheet the auditor can sort: XLS, XLSX, CSV or delimited text, not a PDF or an image file. Fuel credit, the tax already paid at the pump, needs a seller’s or card receipt or an electronic copy of the original; altered or illegible records are rejected unless the licensee can show they are valid (P550).
Two states, two traps
Renewal season adds its own trap: renewed decals and license may be used up to two months before their effective date where the base state allows it, but the fourth-quarter return for the old year is still owed, all operations included (R630). New York opens 2027 renewals in early November; the 2026 fourth-quarter return still lands on Feb. 1, 2027.
New Jersey ties the fourth-quarter return to the plates: fail to file it and the state suspends both the IFTA license and the IRP registration, the apportioned registration behind the truck’s multistate plate.
Florida will not renew a license after three consecutive quarters marked “No Operations” or “Florida Miles Only.” If our client were licensed in Florida, a third straight zero quarter would put the renewal itself at risk. And from Oct. 1, 2026, under Senate Bill 488, a Florida return goes in only through the state’s online system.
The road taxes IFTA does not cover
Five states, New York, Kentucky, New Mexico, Oregon and Connecticut, also tax heavy trucks by weight and miles on their own roads. Each is a separate account, opened with and reported to that state; nothing passes through the IFTA return. Every one of the five expects a return for a period with no miles in that state. Oregon wants it monthly unless the state approves quarterly reporting. Connecticut goes further: two zero quarters in a row give the state grounds for a hearing on cancelling the permit (Conn. Gen. Stat. Section 12-493a(e)(2)), so a permit opened “just in case” is a liability by spring.
The quarterly habit
Ask the client for three things every quarter, whether or not the truck moved:
- – The spreadsheet export from the tracking system for the full quarter, saved on your own drive.
- – Every fuel receipt or card statement in a form P550 accepts.
- – A list of every account the company holds in those five states, so each zero return goes in on that state’s calendar, not IFTA’s.
Then file the IFTA return, zero or not, by the due date, and keep the folder at least four years. The tax is small. The audit is not.
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Dmitry Borovoy founded TruckerNavi (https://truckernavi.com/en), an FMCSA compliance service for new motor carriers, and places first policies as a New Jersey-licensed property and casualty insurance producer with SafeBridge Insurance (https://safebridgeinsurance.com/en). He is the author of “Safety
Manager: From Zero to Expert” (https://truckernavi.com/en/book). His Aug. 31 data column on FMCSA pending authority ran in Commercial Carrier Journal:https://www.ccjdigital.com/regulations/safety-compliance/article/15833385/inside-fmcsa-motus-carrier-data-pending-authority-breakdown
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Tags: freight, fuel taxes, otr, owner operatore, shipping, Taxes, truckers, trucking
