Off road fuel????

[Lee Bradley]

...and Washington still leads the way with gas/diesel average of 36 cents followed by Penn with gas/diesel average of 34.65 cents.

[makemineatwostroke]

Kysteve forget about getting Federal taxes back on fuel Sean must have a loop hole he uses being a part time farmer I am very familiar with the form 4136 and it covers alternative fuels, farmers,trains,use in some intercity and local buses and for export you sign your life away with that form for a .243 rate so go with regular fuel and don't worry about it or use solar 

[HB of CJ]

I for one do not even know for sures if running Red in your DEDICATED APU tank is legal or not.  May be, may not be.  Depends upon if you are running the gen set rolling down a public road, or are 100% only using the apu off in the boonies somewhere.  Me for one would rather NOT run that chance of getting checked (and caught) with ANY red fuel.  The potential fines outway any potential savings.  My two cents worth. 

[JackConrad]

    We run off-road in our separate generator/ProHeat tank. This tank is competely separate from our engine tank. I filled both tanks in South GA near Statesboro a couple days ago.  2 pumps side by side on the fuel island at the station. Off-road 3.999 per gallon and on-road was 4.289. Off road pump had the larger diameter "truck stop" nozzle.  A friend who lives near the station said he has seen pick-ups lined up waiting at the off road pump. I will keep the off-road in my "off-road tank" for my generator/ProHeat. 
     We have ran a total of almost 7000 gallon of fuel in our bus in about 8 1/2 years.  Had we always used off-road, we would have saved about $3000. One fine would have been more much more than that. It does not take having someone stick yourr tank, a leak or an accident that causes a fuel leak can also get you.  Jack

[luvrbus]

When we were in Canada I notice about all Flying J had red fuel but I have never saw red fuel at one in the states anybody know if they have it here

[kysteve]

Thanks for all the info guys,

    Just to clarify things.  I started this thread in part to help me decide some things on my electrical layout and in another part to decide whether or not to find a spot in the bus for the extra tank to fill to run the gen set.  After all the great info here I have definitely aborted the whole ideal.  I ain't much on saving pennies and nickles..........now dollars.....that is different.... Thanks again all for helping me get the cob webs out of my head. .......Steve.......

[Sean]

Kysteve forget about getting Federal taxes back on fuel Sean must have a loop hole he uses being a part time farmer I am very familiar with the form 4136 and it covers alternative fuels, farmers,trains,use in some intercity and local buses and for export you sign your life away with that form for a .243 rate so go with regular fuel and don't worry about it or use solar 

It is not a "loophole".  Anyone can file this form, we file it every year.  Anyone who uses clear diesel for off-road use and can document that use properly is entitled to the credit.  At nearly a quarter a gallon, it adds up -- we're averaging about 400 gallons a year between generator and Webasto, or around $100 tax credit.  If you feel the roughly five minutes it takes to fill this form out properly is not worth the money, that's your decision, but why try to dissuade others from using it?

You simply fill out line 3a of the form, which has a blank for "Type of use", in which you write "Generator" (or furnace, etc.).  The lines you are talking about, lines 3b through 3e, deal with farms, trains, buses, and export, respectively.  (All the lines other than 3 have to do with other fuels, such as gasoline, avgas, alternative fuels, etc.  Ignore those -- line 3a is for non-road use of undyed diesel).  Note that the record-keeping requirements of the form mandate that you keep (but not submit) all your fuel receipts.

Last year's (2007) form can be found here: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f4136.pdf

BTW, we have been audited by the IRS, and there were no audit comments on this deduction.  Also, our taxes are prepared by a CPA, who would certainly not be filing this form if it was not (1) 100% legitimate and (2) worth her fees to file it.  FWIW.

-Sean
http://ourodyssey.blogspot.com

[Sean]

You simply fill out line 3a of the form, which has a blank for "Type of use", in which you write "Generator" (or furnace, etc.). ..

I need to correct myself here (and really, this ought to be a clue that our accountant has been filling out this form for us for the last three years).  In response to a number of reader questions, I posted an article on this subject on our blog,
http://ourodyssey.blogspot.com/2008/06/fuel-tax-and-management.html

In the course of researching my facts, I realized that what you need to put in column (a), "Type of Use," on Line 3(a) is simply the number "8," which comes from a table in the form's instructions ("diesel fuel ... used other than as a fuel in the propulsion engine of a ... diesel-powered highway vehicle").

Sorry for the misinformation.

-Sean
http://ourodyssey.blogspot.com

[cody]

According to the MDOT, in michigan it's legal to use off road fuel in a generator provided the tank is separate from the engine tanks.  The difference, according to them is the road tax is to be paid on the fuel consumed by the vehicle engine but the generator is exempt from road tax because it's function is electrical generation, one side note according to the MDOT is that an adjustment to the regulations was enacted last October that removed the exemption for generators that would be used to charge the battery system of electric cars lol, so if your building a battery driven bus you'll still have to pay the road tax in michigan.  Anyone know how many batteries that would take and wow, how big of an electric motor lol.

[Len Silva]

According to the MDOT, in michigan it's legal to use off road fuel in a generator provided the tank is separate from the engine tanks.  The difference, according to them is the road tax is to be paid on the fuel consumed by the vehicle engine but the generator is exempt from road tax because it's function is electrical generation, one side note according to the MDOT is that an adjustment to the regulations was enacted last October that removed the exemption for generators that would be used to charge the battery system of electric cars lol, so if your building a battery driven bus you'll still have to pay the road tax in michigan.  Anyone know how many batteries that would take and wow, how big of an electric motor lol.

I'm sure that somewhere, someone has invented a bus motor that will run on flash light batteries but the oil companies won't let him develop it.

[Le Mirage]

In Canada...
http://www.fin.gc.ca/toce/2005/gas_tax-e.html

[Green-Hornet]

According to the MDOT, in michigan it's legal to use off road fuel in a generator provided the tank is separate from the engine tanks.  The difference, according to them is the road tax is to be paid on the fuel consumed by the vehicle engine but the generator is exempt from road tax because it's function is electrical generation, one side note according to the MDOT is that an adjustment to the regulations was enacted last October that removed the exemption for generators that would be used to charge the battery system of electric cars lol, so if your building a battery driven bus you'll still have to pay the road tax in michigan.  Anyone know how many batteries that would take and wow, how big of an electric motor lol.

If I read that right.....if a fellow were to make a deisel engine run an elecrical generator then it would be exempt from the road tax....the better question would be how big would an eletric  generator need to be to run a bus! Like the locomotives do!