Motor Fuels Tax Minute, Episode 56: EPA Enforcement

In this week’s episode of Motor Fuels Tax Minute, our hosts introduce Tony Miller, a partner in Weaver’s energy compliance services, who shares his unique insight into EPA enforcement.

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Detailed Description of Weaver’s Motor Fuels Tax Minute, Episode 56

00:00:00
Leanne: Welcome to Weaver’s “Motor Fuels Tax Minute,” the vlog where we talk all things motor fuel. We’ve talked a little bit recently, and you’ve seen some posts on LinkedIn and our blog, about some guidance and a report that the Treasury Inspector General gave to the IRS regarding their enforcement, particularly of biofuels credits. Essentially, the inspector general said there needs to be more enforcement, and they suggested that the IRS speak to their colleagues at the EPA.

We decided to invite our colleague, Tony Miller, who’s a partner in our ECS group, to talk a little bit about this. Tony has some unique insight into EPA enforcement and may be able to offer just a little bit of guidance, suggestions, backgrounds into what those conversations between the IRS and the EPA might look like, or what questions the IRS might be asking taxpayers.

Tony, welcome to “Motor Fuels Tax Minute.”

00:00:54
Tony: Thank you, Leanne. Thank you, Kelly. Great to see you both. Happy to talk about this.

Previously before joining Weaver, I was part of EPA. I was a credentialed inspector going on-site to biofuel facilities, as well as eventually leading a nationwide enforcement of the Fuels Enforcement Branch. I’ve been involved with a lot of different cases along the way, and a lot of the involvement between IRS and EPA and can’t specifically talk about some things that were discussed.

But I can talk about that there is agreement and there is a memorandum of understanding between the two groups and federal government agencies to share information. And that’s really important because when there are discussions within biofuels, there can be more information sharing between the two. And EPA goes out significantly on biofuel inspections and does those investigations and takes cases. There’s been agreement between them and cases that have been taken in terms of criminal prosecutions as well.

It’s really important, if you were to be inspected by EPA to know that the information might have to be married up, and you want to know that the information reporting to both agencies is correct and accurate and agreed upon. There’s a lot to it. When you get to some of the inspections, I want to know that, yeah, the inspectors are there to do their job. They’re usually civil inspectors, they’re not the criminal investigators. But you’re still dealing with federal agents, and you want to be telling the truth. You want to make sure you’re cordial. It’ll help everything go a lot smoother. Just because you’re inspected doesn’t mean that you’re necessarily doing anything wrong at that point. It could be a random inspection. EPA has a neutral inspection criteria that they would adhere to in order to identify facilities to potentially inspect, and it doesn’t mean that they have some reason to be there other than just doing potentially a random inspection. So don’t get scared, but make sure that you are upfront and honest and stay true and answer those questions truthfully.

00:02:58
Kelly: Excellent. Thank you so much, Tony, for sharing this information with us. Now I have to ask because I’ve seen this with state auditors. Are the inspections sometimes based around better areas like go to New York City during the springtime? Go to Florida during the winter?

Click play above to hear the rest of the conversation.