You’ll probably face a fuel-tax audit someday, so don’t just wait for the taxman to knock – be proactive and prepared for his visit.
Death and taxes may be life’s only certainties, but a tax audit isn’t far behind. “We never talk about ‘if’ an audit’s going to happen,” says Bill Ashburn, vice president of Prophesy Transportation Solutions. “It’s ‘when.’ It doesn’t mean you’ve done something wrong. You’re just going to be randomly selected sooner or later.”
Fauber Freightways, a 21-truck fleet in Staunton, Va., recently got “randomly selected” for audit by the Virginia Department of Revenue, a first in the eight years Missy Back has been Fauber’s office manager. She knew exactly what to expect, though. For 13 years, she was in banking, another much-audited business.
“Your stomach hurts when you say the word ‘audit,’ ” Back says. “But we just set the guy upstairs with all the records and left it to him.”
Trucking veterans inevitably become audit veterans, too. In the eight years Dave Stock handled fuel management for Direct Transit of North Sioux City, S.D., the 1,400-truck fleet went through “15 or 18 audits.” Stock – now president of Fuel Systems Services and vice president of fuel management administration for ProMiles Software Development – got to know a parade of auditors.
“You meet all kinds of people,” says Stock, who recalls the audits as a learning experience. “We found out things we were not aware of, things that helped the business run better.” Learning that New York counted toll miles differently from regular miles, for example, cost the fleet $50,000 – but only once. “You didn’t make the same mistake twice.”
All this has made Stock philosophical about audits, whether internal or external. “You have to audit,” he says, “because when you audit, you always catch something.”
