Your mileages are the backbone to your IFTA report. Get this wrong, and you can see some crippling fines coming your way.
Whether you have a good understanding or have no idea what the difference is and want to learn more about your IFTA mileage, this will break it down for you.
By the end of this article, you will understand what miles are taxable, non-taxable, and non-IFTA for your IFTA report. Including what is IRP mileage for your IRP report.
Let’s start here. What are Total IFTA Miles?
Total miles are the total number of miles or kilometres that your vehicle ran everywhere in each jurisdiction, which includes IFTA miles, non-IFTA miles, and non-taxable miles during the quarter.
What are IFTA Miles?
International Fuel Tax Agreement miles or IFTA miles are all miles or kilometres your vehicle ran throughout the quarter in each IFTA-only jurisdiction, including empty or deadhead miles, mileage for moving around the yard or to the mechanic shop, and personal conveyance miles.
To review the IFTA jurisdictions click here: IFTA Jurisdictions
The miles ran for personal conveyance and moving around the yard or driving to the mechanic have to be included in your IFTA report under Total Miles and Total Taxable Miles. Annotation or reference notes have to be made about these miles in case of an audit.
Reporting all miles including personal conveyance can benefit motor carriers because it can lead to a higher MPG. Calculating Taxable Fuel Consumed with a higher MPG results in a lower Taxable Fuel per jurisdiction. This can lower your Total IFTA Tax Balance.
What are Non-IFTA Miles & Non IFTA Jurisdictions?
Non-IFTA State Miles are those miles ran in Non-IFTA Jurisdictions. These jurisdictions are: Alaska, Hawaii, District of Columbia, Yukon Territory, Northwest Territory, Nunavut, and Mexico. In your IFTA report, the miles you drove through the above mentioned jurisdiction are reported as Non-IFTA State Miles.
What are Non-Taxable Miles?
Non-Taxable Miles are miles travelled that are not subject to motor fuel taxes (IFTA). Each jurisdiction has its own unique definition of non-taxable mileage or exemptions. In other words, your Non-Taxable miles are those miles that fall under any of the IFTA jurisdictions’ exemptions.
Here is the table on the IFTA website that lists all the exemptions: IFTA Exemptions
You will notice in the table that there are Vehicle Exemptions, Fuel Exemptions, and Distance Exemptions. These exemptions can change from year to year.
For 2018, some examples of these mileage or distance exemptions are: Forest Roads in California, Agricultural Roads in Utah, Trip Permits in New York, Pike Miles or Toll Roads in Massachusetts.
The only two IFTA jurisdictions that allow Turn-pike Miles or Toll miles to be non-taxable or exempt in 2018 are: Massachusetts and Nova Scotia. Motor carriers that claim these turn-pike miles as non-taxable on their IFTA Quarterly Report must keep the turn-pike or toll miles receipts.
Some jurisdictions allow for fuel exemptions such as fuel permits. So if you purchase a fuel permit, any miles driven with it are not taxable.
As you have just read, it is very important for you to know the IFTA exemptions in your own state or province and those jurisdictions you do interstate commerce when filing for IFTA.
What are IRP Miles?
When it comes to IRP (International Registration Plan), your IRP mileage must equal your IFTA mileage. So, if you are keeping proper records of your miles per state for IFTA then when it is time to renew your registration all you do is run the Summary per Jurisdiction report under the Fuel Tax History Report in eTrucks. You will have your total miles or kilometers per jurisdiction for the registration year (July 1 to June 30) with a click of a button.
To recap, Total Miles include IFTA Miles, Non-IFTA miles, and exemption miles. Total IFTA miles do not include Non-IFTA miles. Total Taxable miles do not include applicable exemption miles. The miles left after removing the Non-IFTA miles and non-taxable miles are the miles you need for calculating your IFTA report. IFTA distance equals to IRP distance.
eTruxFuel has been built to separate the Non-IFTA miles and non-taxable miles automatically when generating your IFTA report.
