International Fuel Tax Agreement (IFTA)

• Did you know Texas Comptroller – IFTA audits are the MOST aggressive of all audits conducted by the Texas Comptroller’s Office?
• 75% of all IFTA audits result in Additional Tax Due. Click here to view the last 24 months of IFTA tax-due audits. 
• The tax due (depending on the number of trucks) can run from $5,000 to $5 MILLION dollars (no kidding).Texas Tax Group has lowered IFTA audits by several thousand to several million dollars.
• Consider hiring TTG to represent you with your IFTA audit. DO NOT WAIT! Mr. Hassan Ali is one of TTG’s most experienced IFTA consultants (link here).

Texas Tax Group can often help if hired before the audit starts by reviewing your records and determining if your logs are complete or incomplete. Then combined with Mr. Hasssan Ali’s extensive experience with this audit type, can provide solutions to resolve the typical errors that lead to large tax due assessments from the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts. 

Follow this link to view prior IFTA audit defense clients of TTG

Record keeping Requirements

1. Mileage Records

• beginning and ending trip dates
• trip origin and destination
• routes of travel
• beginning and ending reading from the odometer, hubodometer, engine control  module (ECM), or any other similar device for the trip
• the total distance of a trip
• distance traveled in each jurisdiction; and vehicle identification number (VIN) or vehicle unit number. Distance records produced wholly or partly by a vehicle tracking system should include the vehicle’s original GPS or other system reading
• date and time of each GPS or other system reading, at intervals sufficient to validate the total distance traveled in each jurisdiction
• location of each GPS or other system reading
• beginning and ending reading from the odometer, hubodometer, engine control  module (ECM), or any other similar device for the trip
• distance between each GPS or other system reading
• routes of travel
• total distance traveled by the vehicle
• distance traveled in each jurisdiction; and vehicle identification number (VIN) or vehicle unit number.

A licensee’s reporting of distance may deviate slightly from a calendar quarter basis provided that:

• the beginning and end dates of the licensee’s reported distance reflect a consistent cut-off procedure
• the deviations do not materially affect the reporting of the licensee’s operations
• the deviations do not materially delay the payment of taxes due
• the cut-off dates for both distance and fuel are the same and the base jurisdiction can reconcile the reported distance for the period through the audit.

2. Fuel Records

• date of purchase;
• name and address of the seller (a vendor code, properly identified, is acceptable for this purpose)
• number of gallons or liters purchased
• type of fuel purchased, or the total price of the fuel purchased
• price per gallon or liter
• evidence of tax paid to a jurisdiction
• unit number of the vehicle into which the fuel was placed; and the name of the purchaser of the fuel (where the qualified motor vehicle being fueled is subject to a lease, the name of either the lessor or lessee is acceptable for this purpose, provided a legal connection can be made between the purchaser named and the licensee).

3. Bulk Fuel Storage

• location of the bulk storage facility from which withdrawals are made
• quarterly inventory reconciliations for each storage tank
• the capacity of each storage tank
• date of withdrawal
• number of gallons or liters withdrawn from each storage tank at each location
• fuel type
• unit number of the vehicle into which the fuel was placed
• purchase and inventory records to substantiate that tax was paid on all bulk fuel purchases to the member jurisdiction where the storage is located; and withdrawals for purposes other than use in IFTA-qualified vehicles

4. Record Retention

5. Why is this important?

Click below to view actual Texas Comptroller Administrative IFTA Hearings for ‘disallowed IFTA records / estimated tax assessments.

• It should be noted that businesses LOSE 95% of the Hearing Requests because the judges rule against them.
• If you get an over-estimated IFTA tax audit bill then you will almost certainly lose your hearing request. Then, if you don’t pay the inflated tax bill the Comptroller will CANCEL your IFTA permit.

Why Texas Tax Group

• TTG is comprised of a team of 20+ former Texas Comptroller State Tax Auditors, Supervisors and Tax Policy Experts with over 400 combined years of work experience with the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts
• TTG has represented over 2,000 clients in areas of sales tax audit defense and research
• TTG’s consultants performed over 5,000 tax audits while employed as auditors by the Texas Comptroller’s Office
• TTG’s Policy Experts wrote over 5,000 private letter rulings while working for the Comptroller’s office
• TTG currently represents over 290 businesses that are under audit by the Comptroller’s office
• TTG has offices located in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, and Austin