Motor Fuels Tax Minute, Episode 70: Documentation for Exports to Mexico

In this week’s episode of Motor Fuels Tax Minute, our hosts fill us in on the documentation required when products are exported to Mexico.

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Detailed Description of Weaver’s Motor Fuels Tax Minute, Episode 70

00:00:00
Kelly: Welcome to our Motor Fuels Tax Minute, where we talk all things motor fuels. Today, Leanne is going to be filling us in on the documentation required when products are exported to Mexico. We know this has become a hot thing in the industry. There are a lot of newcomers who are getting into this kind of business, so I think this information will be vital. Go ahead, Leanne.

00:00:18
Leanne: Yeah. That’s right, Kelly. I think we might have done one of these before, but it never hurts to reiterate. The big thing when you are exporting fuel to Mexico, aside from your invoices and your bills of lading (BOL) which you have for every transaction or your EEIs (electronic export information documents), is copies of the export document filed. It’s actually filed with Customs Bureau of the Census in order to have product exported from the United States. It’s done online. It generates a report.

You need that, and you need it commensurate with the time of the export. You can’t go back and get it three months down the line in order to file your 720 to support your export credits on your Schedule C. These need to be generated at the time you do the export. They need to be maintained. They need to be submitted with all claims or export credits and export refunds. And like all other documents, they need to be maintained for about a seven-year period.

It’s really critical that you have them because we have seen export credits and refunds denied for lack of EEIs. We know there’s issues with the pedimentos and they don’t push quite as hard on those anymore. But they need the EEIs because the EEIs show that the merchandise was designated and exported from the United States. So that along with the BOL, with the Mexican destination, should be the support that’s needed.

00:01:43
Kelly: And also, do they still need a waiver on the invoice from the supplier if it’s the customer?

00:01:50
Leanne: Depending on the type of tax, you may need a waiver in order to file an export credit. So superfund tax. There’s one that comes to mind, the manner in which that tax is collected, and the way the statute is written in terms of who can claim a credit for export. If you are the end purchaser in the United States claiming a credit, you will need to know that the taxpayer further up the chain has waived their right to claim the export credit so that you can move forward. And there’s two ways to do that. One is language on the invoice and another one is an actual certificate.

00:02:21
Kelly: Excellent. Yeah, that’s a lot of good information. Like you said, Leanne, we’ve had a lot of potential clients. Clients come to us after the fact, and hopefully they have the documentation because it gets rejected pretty quickly. And the IRS is very strict, and you might have thousands and thousands and thousands of documents. The IRS will not excuse it. They will want to see every single one. So yeah, it’s best just to keep that documentation on hand so you don’t run into that problem.

00:02:46
Leanne: Yeah, definitely.

00:02:47
Kelly: All right. Well, that was this week’s Motor Fuels Tax Minute. Please join us next week. Thank you.