Quote:
Originally Posted by BigDiesel
Yet more mis-information as Oregon does not have a fuel tax..... :roll:
A lot of erroneous information on this subject from individuals who do NOT have a Oregon base plated fleet and corporation..... :roll:
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I’m pretty sure the great and powerful Oz, er…. I mean GMAN knows the difference, BigD. It is a tax nonetheless and I assumed that GMAN was simply looking at it as the same as a fuel tax, or thinking in terms of what it costs in taxes to run a mile in any one state. OR charges zero state tax at the pump (if you have a “PUC”), which always makes diesel in that state LOOK cheap (at the pump). In order to make a comparison though between other states you have either remove the state tax figured into the pump price of other states (which is what I do to decide where I will purchase fuel), or you need to convert the Oregon road tax into a per gallon equivalent and add it to the pump price. To do this, take you average MPG and multiply that by the per mile road tax rate.
For example, in IL, the tax rate is $.434 per gallon. I average 7 mpg so it costs me $.434 / 7 or $.062 a mile in tax to run in IL. States like NY are more difficult to figure because they have a mileage tax AND a fuel tax so you have to figure the fuel tax out to a cpm rate and then add it to the road tax to see what it costs you per mile to run in NY in tax… for me it’s $.3895 per gallon / 7 + .0495 cpm road tax equals $.1051 a mile to run in NY.
Now getting back to pump prices… many O/Os (more likely lease operators who either do not pay their own IFTA or don’t calculate it for themselves and therefore may not understand how it works) buy fuel by the pump price. If you do this, you’d think fuel in OR is a pretty good deal. Right now, fuel at the Troutdale Flying J is $2.409 a gallon at the pump. Compared to the Flying J in LaSalle, IL where the pump price is $2.679, it looks like a bargain. Problem is that the fuel in OR has no state tax figured into that pump price, so keeping in mind the way IFTA works, we must subtract the tax rate from the IL pump price before we can get an honest assessment of which is lower. When we do this, we see that the fuel in IL is actually $2.245 a gallon… now the fuel in Troutdale doesn’t look like such a good deal.
I’m sure, BigD that you already knew what I just covered, but many, many O/Os do not and would jump at the chance to buy that Troutdale fuel. I buy a lot of fuel in IL and even some places in CA where it is much cheaper than other places in the country where the pump prices would indicate otherwise. I also petty much always get a check back from IFTA, and on top of that ALWAYS buy the cheapest fuel available along my route.