#Fitzgerald glider plus#
That, plus a clutch and transmission, and sometimes axles, are added later at a facility run by Fitzgerald Truck Sales in Crossville, Tenn. It's assembled from a glider kit, so called because, like a glider airplane, it leaves the factory with no engine. But crank over its engine and the faint blue clouds coming from its twin exhaust stacks say that the diesel under the hood is not one of the smokeless wonders made since January 2007 or even October '02. It's an FLD Classic built at the plant in Portland, Ore., and is titled from its year of manufacture, 2007.
However, a 2017 EPA study concluded glider trucks can emit 43 times more nitrogen oxides and 55 times more particulate matter than trucks in compliance with newer federal emissions standards.Nearly everything about this dump truck is brand new, from its virgin tires to the wiring and gauges in the cab to its still-shiny Ox steel box. The TTU study results were included in an Environmental Protection Agency 2017 proposed rule to repeal an Obama-era rule limiting the production of glider trucks by each manufacturer to 300 a year. A TTU investigation found that the study erroneously concluded that emissions from glider trucks are as clean or cleaner than those from newer trucks. On May 26, 2015, the IRS sent a letter informing Fitzgerald that it owed the excise taxes, penalties and interest.įitzgerald was at the center of a controversy in 2018 when a Tennessee Tech University study the glider maker funded was found to involve research misconduct. However, in 2014, court records say, the IRS began an examination for each of the tax quarters from 2012 to 2014. “During each of those years, FTPS did not collect excise tax on the sale of gliders.” “FTPS and its predecessor, Fitzgerald Kit Truck and Sales LLC, were examined on four separate occasions between 19, covering tax years 1991, 11,” court documents said. “In some cases, the gliders these third parties sell are repaired and assembled by the same company, an FTPS affiliate, that repairs and assembles the gliders FTPS sells.” “FTPS is aware of one or more third parties who, like FTPS, sold gliders but, unlike FTPS, have not been assessed excise taxes on their sales,” the lawsuit said. In cases in which the excise tax applies, the seller collects the tax from the buyer as a separately stated charge and remits it to the federal government.
#Fitzgerald glider code#
tax code imposes a 12% excise tax on the first retail sale of tractors used for highway transportation in combination with a trailer or semitrailer. In its lawsuit filed in February, Fitzgerald charged that the IRS in 2015 changed its two-decadeslong position that it was not required to pay a 12% federal excise tax on sales of refurbished gliders because the company qualified for a “safe harbor” exemption provision, since the refurbished trucks sell for less than 75% of the cost of new trucks.įitzgerald IRS by Transport Topics on Scribd District Judge Waverly Crenshaw Jr., of the Middle District of Tennessee, rejected the request. However, in a July 15 memorandum order, Chief U.S. In May, government attorneys asked a federal judge to dismiss portions of the Fitzgerald lawsuit. Government attorneys denied that allegation in their response to Fitzgerald’s legal complaint.
The company alleged it was being targeted by the IRS, which it said has not assessed excise taxes against all dealers who sold gliders during the relevant tax periods. Government attorneys made their counterclaim in a court document filed July 29 in response to claims by Fitzgerald that it was exempt from collecting the tax.
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