Heavy Vehicle Use Tax

Funding Our Nation's Highway Programs and Leveling the Playing Field

Conducting the State HVUT Review

Once you have conducted the preliminary meeting and all the relevant parties are clear on direction, it is now time for the most important step in the compliance review process: conducting the state HVUT review. This stage ultimately generates the findings that are used to determine if a state is compliant with HVUT requirements.

Prior to meeting with the State in this stage, send the list of questions for review, provided by the program office at headquarters to answer in advance. Review their answers to determine which ones need further review and documentation. Be prepared to discuss these responses with the state.

At the meeting with the state, review their answers and probe any that were incomplete. Discuss their practices to obtain proof of payment, including evasion detection, and document them. Document any new approaches to detecting evasion and report them to FHWA HQ as appropriate for potential inclusion in updated versions of the FHWA HVUT compliance review protocol and this training course.

When conducting the state review, you may consider visiting a registration office to review and further discuss actual practices used to obtain proof of payment. While at the local office, review quality assurance processes, checking whether the processes are used and what documentation of prior results has shown.

Draw the sample for review of proof of payment based on the sampling procedures developed in preparation for the review. Check the proof of payment compliance using the answers provided by the State to the list of questions sent previously, and the evasion detection methods outlined later in this course.

During this stage, flaws with state registration systems and problems with HVUT enforcement will be uncovered. The flaws most frequently documented in FHWA compliance reviews are:

• Issues with the timeliness of information and access to it
• No written process for verifying HVUT proof of payment
• State does not keep proof of payment
• No staff training
• Little or no sampling of state records
• No follow-up on FHWA recommendations