IFTA — International Fuel Tax Agreement
IFTA is an agreement among 48 US states and 10 Canadian provinces that lets a carrier file one quarterly fuel tax return covering every jurisdiction it ran in, based on distance travelled in each and fuel purchased in each.
In plain terms.
The idea is simple and the arithmetic is not. You pay fuel tax where you burn the fuel, not where you buy it. So every quarter you report how far you ran in each jurisdiction and how much fuel you bought in each, and the difference is settled — you owe some jurisdictions and are credited by others.
For a Canadian carrier the awkward part is units. Fuel is bought in litres and taxed per litre at home, and in gallons across the border, and the rates change quarterly. A system that assumes gallons will be wrong for every Canadian purchase, quietly, in a way that only surfaces under audit.
Who deals with it
Whoever does the books, usually with the dispatcher supplying mileage and the driver supplying receipts.
When it shows up
Quarterly, with the filing due the month after the quarter closes.
What goes wrong
Mileage nobody can defend. If the distance figures come from an odometer note or a car-routing tool, an auditor can reasonably reject the basis of the whole return.
How Lanexa handles it.
This lives in Compliance, IFTA & Safety, where 40 capabilities are live.