Form M making comeback?

Carriers that hold off on filing the federal government's “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 issued a final rule transferring responsibility of the Motor Carrier Financial and Operating Statistics Program (Form M) from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), effective Sept. 29, 2004.

“Based on the fact that this 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) pointed out that “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.”