Is it worth $240.00
 

I have an accountant that does all my IFTA, Tags, Heavy Road Use Tax, etc...., I just call in my miles and fuel to her every quarter, for the rest she calls me and lets me know when something is coming up and how and when she will need the money for it.

The charge is $60.00 per quarter, and my question is do you do your own or hire someone, and is this a pretty good deal on getting it done?

And is learning how to do these items hard to do?

I don't think 240 is alot. We pay $30/month per truck. It's not hard to do. Is it worth it? Just depends on how much you hate paperwork or how busy you are.

I didn't think so, but did not know as I didn't know what the going rate was.

Heavy Road Use Tax if you mean 2290 is done once a year. Easy to do. Lots of services do it for about $25.

Most of the fuel tax services seem to charge around $25-35/month. You can use a spreadsheet to help calculate the tax yourself or buy software that will do it for you. There are several programs that will do the calculations automatically if you put all the information into the computer. The software usually runs somewhere between $125-200. I can provide you some web addresses if you need them. There are also services that will do your base plates.

One other thing. If you keep your records current you should be able to do your quarterly fuel tax returns manually in about 1-2 hours.

That seems high! Because by supplying her with all the miles and fuel you have done the hardest part of the reporting! All you have to do is fill in the blanks on your form or online and summit it! You are doing the hard part for her! As GMAN stated it only takes about 1 to 2 hours a quarter to do it! That including my Arkansas and KYU!

And your Highway Usage Tax should be done once a year when you renew your tags!

Thank you pigrider.

So BIGMON, tell me this.YOU WOULD PAY SOMEONE $25 TO DO YOUR 2290?Hard to believ if you would.GMAN has said it day in and day out about buying either easy trucking software or truckers helper.I DO MANY THINGS MANY PEOPLE DON'T DO.
When I got my MC, I went straight to my IRS office and tried to learn how to do my quarterly IFTA.After doing my 4th quarter IFTA I learned how to do it manually.I
know how
to divide row J by K,multiply row K-L,subract row M by N etc........Trust me it is not easy and it takes 4hrs.jUST LIKE PIGRIDER SAID, HAVING YOUR MILES AND GALLONS, YOU HAVE ALREADY DONE HER JOB.
Not all states can make your life easy when doing your IFTA online.GA wants you to manually do it by using the formulas above but states like OH and NC you can just put in your miles and gallons purchased in each state and their formulas does it for you.I just purchased easy trucking software and my life is now easy.No one should even have someone do their 2290 or weight distance taxes
because those are the easiest.

Call your states ifta office on Monday and see if they have an online tax website. Maryland does and I use it, it's free and it's easy. Also, you don't have to send in a hard copy of the return. If you owe you just send a check.

I made a little spreadsheet to keep track of miles and fuel, at the end of quarter I take those numbers and put them in the free program and presto! Done.

I do it myself. I don't pay anyone to do anything that I can do myself.

For one truck:

-- IFTA Quarterlies take me about 1 hour at most
-- Oregon road tax is filed on-line and takes literally 2 minutes to fill in 3 boxes and pay via debit card (just calculated and filed April's while sitting in my truck at the Oak Grove, MO Petro an hour ago)
-- KY road tax takes about 2 minutes (actually takes longer to address and stamp the envelope)
-- NM road tax takes about 2 minutes and may be filed and paid on-line
-- NY State road tax form actually looks like a full-fledged income tax form, but after the first time it now takes me about 5 minutes to complete and mail
-- Form 2290 (annual heavy use tax) takes about 5 minutes, but you REALLY should go to your local IRS office and file and pay that in person
-- Annual IRP (truck CAB Card / Registration)(in Illinois, anyway) takes me about 30 minutes to prepare and file
-- One nobody ever talks about (and I didn't even know about until I got their nice little form in the mail a few weeks ago) is Kansas PROPERTY tax that must be paid on any equipment that ran under your authority in KS during the previous year. This one is pretty easy to prepare and mail and took me about 5 minutes after my blood pressure went back down. I guess they get back to you by the middle of the year and tell you how much to send them. Anybody else ever hear of that one???

I am a control freak and like to handle all my own paperwork. I even do my own bookkeeping because I started to worry about what would happen if my accountant (who I used to mail all my receipts to) suddenly died. What might happen to my receipts?

Most of this stuff is just too easy to do to pay somebody else to do for you. Maybe if you had 30 trucks... but just one or two? I'd put all those fees in my own pocket, for sure.

Holy sh-t! That is more than my usual payment to IFTA for one truck. It took me about an hour to do the paperwork and write a check. The rest of the stuff was free to do also other than the stamp. Dude, you are throwing money out the window.

And I kept all of my records on a pad of paper, just added up fuel and mileage when sitting in the truck stop at the end of every week and or month.

Mike