The Owner-Operator Trucker's 2026 Per Diem Deduction: Why You Deduct 80%, Not 50%
Owner-operators deduct 80% of the $80 IRS transportation per diem rate — $64 a day — not 50%. Claim only overnight days and prorate partial days at 75%.
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FMCSA's Non-Domiciled CDL Crackdown and Dalilah's Law: The 2026 Driver-Verification Checklist for Carriers and Brokers
The March 16, 2026 FMCSA final rule limits non-domiciled CDLs to H-2A, H-2B, and E-2 drivers with SAVE verification, roadside English-proficiency failures are out-of-service violations, and penalties for permitting a disqualified driver to operate top $23,000 each — here are the five checks carriers and brokers should run before every dispatch.
FMCSA's July 2026 Three-Rule Rollback: What Your Fleet Can Stop Filing — and What You Still Must Track
Three FMCSA final rules effective July 22, 2026 end federal CDL conviction self-reporting, drop the in-cab ELD operator's manual, and make roadside inspection report returns on-request only. Hours-of-service limits, drug-and-alcohol testing, annual MVR checks, driver qualification files and defect correction are unchanged; this guide covers what moved, what did not, and a 30-day small-fleet checklist.
Michigan's 69% Fuel Tax Jump: The Net Cost Shift Every Vehicle-Heavy Business Should Recalculate
Michigan's motor fuel excise tax rose from 31 to 52.4 cents per gallon on January 1, 2026, while the 6% sales tax on fuel disappeared — a swap that costs more below a $3.57 pump price and less above it. Here is the breakeven math, the fleet-level dollar impact, and five recalculations covering cost per mile, surcharges, reimbursements, IFTA filings, and fuel bookkeeping.
Is Your ELD Still Legal? What the FMCSA's Revoked-Device Purge Means for Your Trucks and Your Books
The FMCSA revoked 67 electronic logging devices in 2026 — including Safe ELD and MYLOGS ELD — each starting a 60-day replacement clock, after which a revoked device counts as no ELD at all. Here is how small carriers verify their device against the live registry, avoid out-of-service orders and CSA points, and book the forced swap as a clean per-truck deduction.
FedEx FY2026 Q4 Earnings: $94.7 Billion on $1 Billion of Cuts and a Freight Spin
FedEx's Q4 and full-year FY2026 print: $25.0B quarterly / $94.7B annual revenue, $4.43B net income, operating margin 5.8%, and more than $1B of transformation savings — with the June 1, 2026 Freight spin-off modeled in a public Beancount ledger covering FY2021–FY2026.
Cargo Theft Surged 60% to $725 Million: What Small Carriers Need to Know About Tighter Underwriting and Rising Premiums in 2026
Cargo theft losses hit $725 million in 2025, up 60%, with average theft at $273,990. Small carriers face 18 percent cargo premium hikes, theft sublimits, and stricter underwriting on high-risk lanes—learn what thieves target, where risk moved, and the bookkeeping that keeps coverage intact.
FMCSA's $75,000 Freight Broker Bond Is Finally Enforceable: What the January 2026 Suspension Clock Means for Your Authority
FMCSA's broker financial-responsibility rule took full effect January 16, 2026, adding a seven-business-day cure clock, electronic shortfall notice, and a cash-liquidity standard for BMC-85 trusts. This guide covers the four rule changes and the bookkeeping controls that keep a $75,000 bond available on short notice.
Moving Company Bookkeeping: Per-Move Job Costing, Fleet Depreciation, and Seasonal Cash Flow
Moving companies earn 55-60% of revenue between May and August, then face a 50-70% winter trough. Job-cost every move, depreciate trucks under MACRS 5-year rules, hold a 12-18% peak-season reserve, and run a 13-week cash forecast so summer profit funds winter.
Freight Broker Bookkeeping: Factored Invoices, Carrier Payments, and the $75,000 Reserve
How freight brokers should structure their books — separate gross freight revenue from net margin, record factoring advances as loans (not income), track quick pay fees distinctly, and account for the FMCSA $75,000 bond or trust reserve that 2026 rules require replenishing within seven days of a claim.
Cotton Gin Bookkeeping: Costing the Per-Bale Ginning Fee, Cottonseed Byproduct Revenue, and Module Truck Hauling
USDA's latest survey put average ginning cost at $49.31 per bale in 2022, up 106% in three years. This guide shows how a cotton gin should structure its books — unbundling the per-bale ginning fee into receiving, drying, pressing, and bagging cost centers, booking cottonseed (15–20% of per-bale gross revenue) as a separate product line, and breaking module truck hauling out as its own transportation charge.
FMCSA Repeals CDL Conviction Self-Reporting: What the July 2026 Rollback Actually Changes for Small Trucking Fleets
FMCSA's June 2026 final rule, effective July 22, 2026, eliminates three redundant requirements — CDL holders self-reporting convictions, keeping a paper ELD manual in the cab, and auto-returning roadside inspection reports — citing ~25,000 unnecessary violations in 2024. Annual MVR checks, driver qualification files, and inspection-report retention remain fully in force, and state-level reporting statutes may still apply.