The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration plans to reduce annual Unified Carrier Registration fees in 2019. Carriers with one or two trucks will pay $63 for 2019 registration, collection for which will begin around Oct. 1, FMCSA says.
The agency last year proposed cutting 2019 fees to $73, but the agency now proposes to cut the fee further, by another $10. Carriers operating three to five trucks will pay $187 for 2019 — $40 less than 2017’s fees.
The agency has proposed to then bump the fees back up to 2018 levels in 2020 — $69 for one- and two-truck carriers and $206 for carriers with three to five trucks.
Regulations require UCR fee adjustments when annual revenues exceed the maximum allowed ($112 million). The UCR Plan board estimates that by Dec. 31, 2018, total revenues will exceed the statutory maximum for the 2017 registration year by approximately $9.17 million. Registration fees were reduced for the 2018 registration year for the same reason.
In a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to be published in the Federal Register on Aug. 21, FMCSA proposes to lower fees for the 2019 registration year (with collection beginning on or around Oct. 1, 2018) by approximately 17.59 percent below the 2017 fee level “to ensure that fee revenues do not exceed the statutory maximum, and to account for the excess funds held in the depository.”
Proposed fees for the 2020 registration year, with collection beginning on or around Oct. 1, 2019, would be reduced by approximately 9.5 percent from the 2017 level.
The UCR Plan board requested that the adjusted fees be adopted by Aug. 31 to enable states and the UCR Plan board to reflect the new fees when collections for 2019 registrations begin.
Comments on the NPRM can be made for 10 days following its publication Tuesday in the Federal Register. Comments can be made by searching Docket No. FMCSA-2018-0068 at www.regulations.gov.
