Using Fuel Receipts to Determine Routes of Travel Case history in Oklahoma

Oklahoma Case History Recently an audit was conducted by Oklahoma under both IRP (2003 and 2004) and IFTA (2 nd quarter – 4 th quarter 2004). Beginning and Ending Odometers were not maintained. (Odometer readings were made available from vehicle service records after protesting.) Routes of travel were not maintained. The company operated about 25 company owned and 25 owner operated vehicles. Company owned vehicles were equipped with GPS devices. Owner Operator equipment were not so equipped. (Longitude/Latitude points were not provided during the original audit)

Oklahoma Case (cont.) For purposes of audit, three company owned vehicles and three owner operator vehicles were selected for sampling. Fuel was audited and verified. Fuel was accepted and no adjustments made. A distance tool was used to determine that minimum distance was reported. When reviewing the sample results, there were several jurisdictions were no distance had been reported but fuel had been purchased. The majority of these occurrences were in the western jurisdictions. One such route was from Kansas to Nevada, near Reno. ( This happened quite often, so we’re not so sure that Reno wasn’t the destination.)

Oklahoma Case (cont.) Without routing information, what did the auditor do? Since no routing information had been provided (Longitude/latitude points were not made available during the original audit.), the auditor used what was available to him to determine the routes, Fuel Receipts.

Oklahoma Case (cont.) After adjusting the routes for fuel stops, audit findings were issued. For both IRP and IFTA, the records were deemed inadequate for audit. *IFTA – Results were issued with a reduced MPG *IRP – Results were issued with credits denied.

Oklahoma Case cont. As a result of the findings, the Company protested the results. More information was provided. *Longitude/Latitude points *Odometer readings from vehicle service records. *We also verified that the GPS was not in service until after June This affected the IRP findings as far as credit denial.

Oklahoma Case (cont.) What did Oklahoma do next?

Oklahoma Case (cont.) First the company was required to self audit all vehicles for the 4 th quarter They were to use Longitude/Latitude points were available. (company equipment) Use all stops, including fuel stops, when Long/lat were not available. (owner/operators)

Oklahoma Case (cont) What did Oklahoma do?

Oklahoma Case (cont.) After receiving the self audit data, we: *reviewed the previous sample units; *compared the audit sample to the self- audit data; *used a distance tool to run the long/lat points and compared the resulting distances.

Oklahoma Case (cont.) What did we find?

Oklahoma Case (cont.) The company did not use the long/lat points for company owned equipment, none the less, the company self audited distances and the distances using fuel stops closely resembled the distances obtained from the long/lat points. Some of the difference was attributed to routing through the nearest post office.

Oklahoma Case (cont.) What does this mean?

Oklahoma Case (cont) This means that fuel receipts can be used to help determine routes of travel. Which, in this case, we were able to confirm for units that had the GPS system.

Oklahoma Case Summary In this case, we were able to determine routes of travel based on fuel stops. Because the GPS system was only available on the company owned equipment and was not in use until after June 2003, records for the revised findings were still deemed inadequate. Beginning and ending odometer readings were not maintained. The company was able to provide odometer readings from vehicle service records which we were able to use to validate that the reported MPG was higher than the MPG determined through audit.

Oklahoma Case Questions/Discussions?