Form M Going to FMCSA

Carriers holding off on filing “Form M” annual and quarterly financial reports may get penalized for the first time in a great while.

The Office of the Secretary of Transportation (OST) issued a final rule transferring the responsibility of the Motor Carrier Financial and Operating Statistics Program from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), effective September 29, 2004.

BTS does not have an enforcement arm, while FMCSA does— underscoring the need to consider filing “Form M.”

“Based on the fact that this mandatory reporting program is regulatory in nature and requires the release of information concerning individually identifiable respondents, OST and BTS identified this program as a candidate for re-delegation,” OST stated in the Federal Register.

The Truckload Carriers Assn. (TCA) stated, “The transfer of the function to FMCSA raises new concerns and increases the importance of eliminating the mandatory reporting requirement…In the future those motor carriers that have not been filing the mandated annual and quarterly reports could expect enforcement action from the agency.”

To see the final rule, visit the Federal Register.