ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Support for low sulfur heating oil from the National Oilheat Research Alliance (NORA) has spurred the Federation of Tax Administrators to commit to establishing a specific code for this fuel oil product. According to NORA, this move will be followed with recognition by the Internal Revenue Service for reporting purposes.

Product “151-Low Sulfur Heating Oil (Dyed)” will be implemented at the end of summer. The code designation will appear on various regulatory forms with which wholesale heating suppliers comply, including Form 782C used by NORA to collect the assessment of $.002 placed on heating oil sold to end-use consumers. NORA said that wholesalers and retailers will want to bring this new code into their accounting systems.

The need to ensure that the heating oil receives a different designation from low sulfur dyed diesel is due to the fact that this category of heating oil, while gaining in use, has not been specifically subject to the NORA collection process. Ensuring collection of the fee requires the industry to develop a new name for the low sulfur fuel and to ensure that the code is in the product codes of the various account and tax software.

Publication date: 07/14/2003