On 9/2/2014 a US Attorney in Florida announced an indictment of a registration service for defrauding owners of large tractor trailers of lots of money. Read the original articles from WTCV and OOIDA.
Fraud is easy to understand – it is simply deception.
In the case cited in the article, the registration service collected the taxes due for Form 2290 from the truckers but did not file the return-then kept the money.
But there are many other ways to deceive truckers such as:
- Not posting a fee schedule
- Not separating service fees from taxes & registration fees
- Grouping multiple charges into one lump sum bill
- Not providing copies of tax returns & agency receipts
- Not returning your records
- Not answering your questions
A really great registration service will do some things differently:
- Post a Fee Schedule so you know what we charge.
- Itemized billing – so you see service charges separated from other fees and taxes.
- Ask you to write checks to the agencies you owe money to so you know where the money is going and have a receipt.
- Use your credit card for electronic payments whenever possible so you have the receipt and know the money didn’t go into their pockets.
- Provide you copies of all tax returns, payment confirmations and acknowledgements.
We know this is more work for you-and the registration service. Often a registration service will “Sell” these kinds of practices by pointing out how easy they make it to do business with them. But it’s better that you have the tools and information to know that you’re not being deceived.