Heavy Vehicle Use Tax Form 2290 – HVUT Penalties

All heavy vehicles with a gross weight of 55,000 lbs. or more, which use public highways for their transportation purposes, should pay the taxes as per the Federal Heavy Vehicle Use Tax Regulations. If you are an active person in the trucking industry, you must be familiar with it. This tax is mandatory for all heavy highway vehicle users to file form 2290. The tax amount is due by the end of the month, following the date that the heavy vehicle is first used on public highways. Therefore, they don’t take your vehicle purchase date into account, when calculating these taxes.

Usually, the 2290 form should be filled out by the 31^st of August every year. According to the law, you need to pay these taxes in a timely manner, or else, there will be penalties. The penalties for highway tax non-compliance are costly to vehicle owners. Failing to file form 2290 before the due date is equivalent to a 4.5 percent tax due, which is being assessed on a monthly basis for up to five months. In addition to this, you will need to pay additional interest charges of 0.54 percent as well.

With all these rates, normally the liability comes to around $550, but it can climb up to $700 due to negligence. Moreover, many states suspend the registration of new vehicles for not making the payments. Heavy vehicle use tax evasions can even lead you to fines and imprisonment. This has clearly been mentioned in the heavy vehicle use tax (HVUT) evasion page as well. For the crime, the owner of the trucking company can be sentenced to severe four-month imprisonment along with an additional four months of electronically monitored home confinement. When all the prosecutions and criminal investigations are complete, a finding of non-compliance will be made public.

In order to avoid these penalties, you need to file a 2290 form before the due date. Two methods are available for the people to file this. You can visit the nearest IRS office, get a copy, file it manually, or file it electronically. The e-filing heavy vehicle use tax will give you the opportunity to file the IRS Form 2290 in a convenient way. But before you fill it, you need to make sure that the e-filling service of choice is authorized by the IRS. This method is preferred by many heavy vehicle users because of its simplicity. If you are a heavy vehicle user, who is liable to pay the heavy vehicle use tax, you should select the most convenient method and file the form 2290 tax in order to avoid the above-mentioned penalties.