Bering has 46 full-service dealer locations in 24 states. If the manufacturers don't make the deadline, and if federal regulators don't relent, the prospect of a ban on U.S. diesel engine sales looms. None of the manufacturers attended the hearing. Straight trucks and tractors are generally depreciated over three years, whereas trailers have a five-year life span for tax purposes. The point of contention is how to account for original equipment tires.
Many companies deduct all of their tire expenses on new vehicles in the year they are acquired.
However, some IRS field agents have a preference for considering the tires as indivisible parts of new vehicles - not as components to be treated separately. In addition, IRS agents have been reading advertisements from tire companies on how new, better tires are lasting longer than 12 months. Assets lasting longer than one year cannot be expensed on a company's taxes in a single year. Rather, they must be amortized over an appropriate period, and for trucks, tractors or trailers those periods are three or five years. The federal agency is conducting an open forum on the Internet to receive papers, comments and questions from all interested parties.