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Worked example · 3Q2026 rates

A whole IFTA return, start to finish

One truck, one quarter, 5 jurisdictions. Every figure below is computed by the same engine the product runs — none of it is typed into the page — so what you are reading is exactly what the arithmetic does.

This exists because no government publishes a complete worked multi-jurisdiction return. State instructions cover a column or a rule; none of them run a whole quarter through to a total. That gap is why this page is here.

An illustration, not a verification. Working an example with the engine under test says nothing about whether the engine is right — and this product's composed return still has not been checked against a real filed one. Use it to understand the shape of the calculation, not as authority for your own.

Step one

The quarter's totals give you one MPG

Fleet-wide, not per jurisdiction. Every taxable-gallon figure below is derived from this single number, which is why the rounding rule for it matters.

Fleet average

5.43 MPG

14,000 miles ÷ 2,580 gallons = 5.426, carried to three decimals and then rounded to two.

Step two

Then one line per jurisdiction

Taxable gallons are that jurisdiction's miles ÷ the fleet MPG, rounded to a whole gallon. Net is taxable minus what you actually bought there — and a negative net is a credit, not a mistake.

A worked IFTA quarter by jurisdiction
JurisdictionCode Miles Taxable gal Paid gal Net gal Rate Tax
OHOhio4,8208887601280.4700$60.16
PAPennsylvania3,1105733002730.7410$202.29
WVWest Virginia1,24022802280.3570$81.40
KYKentucky2,960545980-4350.2200-$95.70
KYsurcharge5450.1050$57.23
INIndiana1,870344540-1960.6300-$123.48
The row worth staring at

Kentucky owes money while being owed money

Kentucky bought more fuel than it burned: 545 taxable gallons against what was pumped there, netting -435 gallons. At 0.2200 that is a genuine credit of -$95.70 — the state owes it back.

The surcharge does not follow. It is computed on taxable gallons, not net taxable gallons, so it is 545 × 0.1050 = $57.23, owed. A surcharge can never come back as a credit no matter how much fuel was bought there.

This is the single easiest thing to get wrong in an IFTA return, and it is not hypothetical: an earlier version of this product summed the surcharge into the base rate and ran the combined figure through the net-gallons formula. On a jurisdiction like this one that fabricated an impossible surcharge credit and understated what was owed. The rule, and the source it comes from.

Step three

Everything in the tax column, added up

$181.90

Credits in one jurisdiction genuinely offset tax owed in another, and surcharge rows are part of the same total rather than a separate schedule. No interest is included — that applies only to a return filed late.

Every figure on this page is produced by app/ifta/calc.py when the site is built, using 3Q2026 rates. If the engine changes, this page changes with it — a worked example that drifts from the tool it illustrates is worse than none.

Not live yet

That is one quarter, for one truck

Assembling the miles and gallons that feed it is the part that takes four to eight hours. That is the part CabPurser is being built to do.

Goes to a person, not a drip sequence.

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