EROAD has defended it’s position on editorial statements regarding its fuel tax reporting service recently launched in the USA, which were published online by DIESELtalk on April 15.
In the article EROAD said it had launched the first automated electronic fuel tax reporting service in North America, for trucking firms to file quarterly fuel tax returns required by the international fuel tax Agreement (IFTA).
However, International Telematics North America president Dean Marris sent DIESELtalk an email claiming: “This is incorrect reporting”.
According to Marris: “Automated IFTA has been in the US for years and to State that EROAD are the first Electronic providers in this area is not correct.”
“We, like other Telematic providers in the US have been providing this as an automated solution since 2010.”
Another online comment was received from Shane Masters of Bridge City, Texas.
“Great news on being able to automate IFTA reporting! I’m a little curious as to how you were able to automate IFTA reporting prior to Comdata/Intertax who started doing it 19 years ago, and current industry leaders such as ProMiles Software and their multiple GPS partners who have been doing it since the late 90’s.
“Automation of IFTA and mile tax reporting while satisfying industry compliance requirements is no simple task, so a congratulations is in order, but you may want to review your timeline.”
However, DIESELtalk asked Senior vice president and EROAD founder Brian Michie to clarify the companies position around the statements made on April 15 and this was his response.
“You are correct that a number of vendors already offer products that assist carriers to meet their IFTA obligations, but what distinguishes the EROAD offer is that it is the first to provide a comprehensive IFTA solution which replaces paper trip sheets making it easier for carriers to record fuel, trip information and state line crossings with precision,” says Michie.
“By comparison many IFTA existing products are software only services that assist carriers with IFTA calculations. These solutions, while helpful, require other parties to generate the underlying source data, and while other IFTA services use fleet tracking hardware, records generated by simple GPS devices can be prone to significant errors and faults, and are often plagued by troublesome ‘data gaps’ that can undermine the integrity of carrier records.
“Likewise typical fleet tracking services do not meet statutory record keeping and archive requirements necessitating the redundant collection and storage of both electronic and paper records. From a compliance perspective any solution is only as good as the weakest link, meaning poor underlying data and records will expose carriers in the case of an audit.
“By comparison, the advanced EROAD hardware contains a GPS receiver that receives and processes GPS signals continuously (every one second). EROAD’s rapid ping rate, and a powerful mapping engine, translates into better IFTA record keeping. In addition, a proprietary electronic map data layer, and sophisticated geo-fence tool, supports accurate and audit-able exempt mile calculations. The identification of tax exempt IFTA miles has the potential to deliver an outstanding ROI to clients, generally unachievable with paper or competitor solutions.
“The EROAD solution is also unique as having been independently verified by the Oregon state government as accurate and reliable, and automatically generates the required data elements and identifies tax and exempt mileage. Source data, trip records and tax reports are stored and archived on a secure platform to meet IFTA requirements.
“We are not aware of any other product that fully satisfies the current and proposed IFTA requirements for electronic systems,”concludes Michie.
