She may bristle at the distinction, but Sandy Johnson is a bona fide vehicle tax and licensing guru. She’s the person government folks phone when they want to teach their prorate officers the in’s and out’s of the International Registration Plan. She’s the sharp mind you call when you’re tangled up in the red tape of vehicle registration.

With her partner, Bill Taylor, Johnson runs Calgary-based Total Trucking Management, a consulting firm that specializes in fuel tax and vehicle registration, as well as business skills for owner-operators (403/860-8025; www.totaltrucking.com). They also market IRP FeeCalc, an Excel spreadsheet she and Taylor designed to help fleets calculate vehicle registration fees.

With 20 years of tax and licensing experience, Johnson knows all too well what fleet managers in Manitoba and Eastern Canada are going through as they make the transition to IRP, implemented this past spring. “I think it’s easy to forget that when you sign up to get an IRP cab card, you’re agreeing to keep certain records, and that you’re going to have to make them available for audit,” she says. “To do a thorough job is tedious work, but it’s really important. This is all about paying for the use of the roads where you go, and governments take that stuff very seriously.”

We asked Johnson to address some of the key issues for fleets still coming to grips with IRP:

DESIGNATE YOUR POINT MAN

At small companies, responsibility for tax and licensing often falls to the owner or his or her spouse. At a medium-sized firm, usually it’s an accountant. Big companies typically have a dedicated tax and licensing department.

“You can hire a service bureau to shoulder all the work, but it’s a mistake to think that your responsibility ends there,” she says. “For example, I know the government side, I can keep on top of the changing rules, but I don’t know about your operation. I’m only as effective as you are at feeding me information about where you run, the distances you travel, what you haul, how many trucks you have, and how those things might change as your company evolves.”

Make sure that whoever manages your IRP work is prepared to do so. If you’re the one who’ll do it, learn about the new procedures, check to make sure your current record keeping system will meet the requirements of IRP.

Where can you go for IRP information and training? Try www.aamva.org and click on IRP Inc. Read through all the literature that your provincial prorate office provides.And talk to other trucking companies, especially those in B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan, which have been using IRP for years.

CALL THE ACCOUNTANT

Prorate is a simple concept. If you’re using Quebec roads 100% of the time, then you’ll pay 100% of your registration fees to Quebec. If you’re running 25% of your miles in Quebec and 75% in New Brunswick, then you need to apportion 75% of your fees to New Brunswick to pay for use of those roads.

“Functionally, carriers that are finding the biggest change in fees and procedures are ones that have never before been part of a prorate plan,” Johnson says. “They’ve bought a full plate from their base province and then picked up trip permits to run in the jurisdictions that don’t recognize the plate. Some will save money because they’ve been spending huge amounts on single-trip permits and/or plates.”

Also, carriers outside Quebec who paid the Quebec insurance fee no longer will have to — that’s a savings of $380 per truck per year.

Keep your accountant in the loop, Johnson suggests, because IRP can alter your cash position quickly in the following ways:

— When to pay: A lot of small carriers in provinces with staggered registration have been able to license trucks at the end of every month, but IRP is an annual plan, and states want their money at the start of the registration year. All of your cash has to come out at one time. Some jurisdictions will allow you to defer payment, but often at a cost: Ontario, for example, will let you defer your Ontario portion — at 12% interest.

— The currency you use: You have to use U.S. funds to pay fees for your portion of travel the United States. If 50% of your miles are south of the border, 50% of your fees will be in U.S. dollars. That can hurt your bottom line if you’re not prepared.

— Organize your fleets: First, you’re probably going to have actual mileage distances based on your IFTA fuel-tax data. That’s the starting point — it tells you where your trucks go and how many miles they run.

Then what I do is to look at a map and regionalize. Bear in mind that if you have a fleet of trucks, all trucks don’t have to travel in any given state or province to be registered there. It may be worth it to add a jurisdiction just because you want the flexibility to go there. Simplicity is best.

Does it cost you substantially more to add a state? Not really. Whether you run in two states or 20, your registration fee is what it is. IRP doesn’t set fees, it just ensures that your fees are properly apportioned according to where you travel. If you have high miles in a high-fee state, your fee will be higher. If you have high distance in a low-fee jurisdiction, your fee will be lower.

In any case, the amount depends on the state or province you’re adding and how many miles you’re going to run there.

“You might say, ‘I don’t want to go to California because I don’t want to pay that high licensing fee.’ What are you going to do when you get to the border?” she asks. “Are you going to trans-ship? If your truck runs 10% of its miles in California, you’re going to pay the state 10% of the registration fee. That’s how prorate works. Everybody wants a piece of what you owe. IRP just makes dividing up the fees a lot easier for trucking companies, and a lot more fair.”