BEFORE THE Department of TRANSPORTATION

OF THE STATE OF MONTANA

 

In the matter of the amendment of ARM 18.9.103 pertaining to Distributor's Statements

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NOTICE OF AMENDMENT

 

TO:  All Concerned Persons

 

1.  On January 14, 2010 the Department of Transportation published MAR Notice No. 18-125 pertaining to the proposed amendment of the above-stated rule at page 22 of the 2010 Montana Administrative Register, Issue Number 1.

 

2.  The department has amended the above-stated rule as proposed.

 

            3.  The department has thoroughly considered the comments and testimony received.  A summary of the comments received and the department's responses are as follows:

 

COMMENT # 1:  A comment was received by the department from Debra Benton of Moore Oil Inc. stating: 1) if her company purchased software and then paid maintenance fees for a program to assemble reports to file in the three states in which this company operates, it would be expensive for a company their size; 2) the reasoning for the proposed rule--to reduce errors, save penalties and interest--are not sufficient reasons since her company has few errors and had only one penalty in the last twenty years of filing tax returns; and  3) the threshold separating those required to file electronically and those who do not seems low. The comment questioned whether there any distributors that qualify under the threshold.

 

RESPONSE # 1:  The department acknowledges Moore Oil's comment and has taken it into consideration.  The department's responses to the remarks are: 1) the department is not requiring any company to purchase software.  Instead, a distributor can file electronically through the department's internet web-based filing program.  This is free to licensed distributors; 2) overall, distributors who converted from paper to filing electronically on the department's web-based application have found it saves penalties, interest, and reduces errors.  The application also verifies that a tax return has been received.  If a tax return has not been verified there is an e-mail reminder sent by the department to the distributor prompting them to file timely; 3) there are in excess of thirty distributors that do not lift more than a combination of 99,999 gallons a year of diesel and gas fuel, and thus are under the threshold the rule sets for electronic filing.

 

/s/ Carol Grell Morris                         /s/ Jim Lynch                         

Carol Grell Morris                              Jim Lynch

Rule Reviewer                                    Director

                                                             Department of Transportation

 

Certified to the Secretary of State March 1, 2010.