Ken,
It's been a couple of years, at least, since the Feds decided to eliminate the
use of Federally untaxed home heating oil in diesel powered on-road trucks.
Diesel is taxed by around thirty cents a gallon and most, if not all, states
also add a tax of around ten to fifteen cents. Another problem the Feds had
was with fuel and diesel dealers pocketing the tax. I recall one company
here in South Jersey that was really getting big, until they got caught not
sending in the taxes they collected. An 8,000 gallon load of fuel has about
$360. in taxes on it. Say a company delivers twenty trailer loads a week,
they'd be making an extra $7200! Multiply this by how many loads they
kept the tax on over a period of time and it would amount to a pretty large
sum. Multiply that by how many gallons were delivered across the country
in the same period of time, we can see why the Feds took this action.
We were in PA, yesterday, and when I pulled into a service station to
fuel up my CUCV, I noticed a sign on their kerosene pump advising that
is was dyed red in order to curtail illegal use. I think the red fuel is
picked
up at the refineries untaxed and the diesel tax is collected by the refiner
or distributor.
Joe Young
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