The IRS has very specific rules regarding personal use of company or fleet vehicles. And the tax agency is beginning to seriously crack down in the form of audits, fines, and penalties levied against businesses that do not comply with these rules by allowing employees to use company vehicles for personal use.

Personal Use Problems

Employees’ personal use of company cars is supposed to show up on 1099 forms or employees’ W-2s. Companies that do not include this information are likely to become the targets of IRS audits for the use of business-owned vehicles for personal reasons.

Some businesses have a hard time getting cooperation from employees when it comes to reporting mileage and designated personal use. In response, many are turning to tactics such as reporting the full year’s lease value as personal use so that the employee is stuck paying the value of it.

In these instances, employees have the opportunity to itemize and deduct these business mileage expenses on their taxes. The fact remains that businesses need to create policies requiring employees to provide accurate and frequent mileage accounts. Read the rest of this entry »

Minnesota-based Beargrease Sled Dog Marathon goes digital with live GPS tracking of the race.

On January 26^th at 1:00pm, the annual Beargrease Sled Dog Marathon returns to Duluth, Minnesota where it will start at Duluth East High School. This year, the track is the same as previous years, and many participants are returning after completing the race for several years. One thing that is brand new for the 2014 marathon race, though, is that GPS tracking technology is going to be used. This year the race is providing data in real-time to the public and the fans.

Global positioning systems (GPS) are used for a variety of things, aside from basic navigation, which is what the majority of people use them for. But increasingly, many governments, associations, and organizations are using GPS tracking to gather data for animal protection studies, catch criminals, and measure data for other uses. A latest use is for the Beargrease dog sled marathon race, where GPS tracking is used to follows racers through the course between Duluth and Grand Portage. Read the rest of this entry »

Scientists attempt to prevent damage from future oil spills by using GPS tracking technology.

The last major oil spill was the Deepwater Horizon spill, also referred to as the BP Oil Spill, in 2010, which involved 4.9 million barrels of oil being poured into the Gulf of Mexico. The spill occurred during a period of three months and caused devastation to local beaches, ecosystems, and wildlife. And this is what researchers want to try to avoid.

As reported by Medill Reports, models are being used that show what happens when nearly five million barrels of oil are poured into the Gulf, using this last spill as a prime example of the utter devastation it causes. The mission is to understand the behavior of oil in the deep blue ocean and predict how it will move at a site of an oil spill leak.

The modeling research project is being performed in Florida’s Panhandle and includes researchers and scientists from 16 different colleges and universities. The most recent part of the study included collecting data for the model to show what happens onshore when the oil spill occurs. The goal is to find possible ways of mitigating the damage and to divert the spill, if at all possible. Read the rest of this entry »

Stranded skiers get rescued by search and rescue, thanks to GPS tracking.

Everywhere you look, global positioning systems (GPS) and their advanced tracking abilities are being used for good. Most recently, it is to help a large group of skiers that became lost overnight in the backcountry area of West Kootenays, BC.

The rescue happened overnight when eight children and two adults were skiing outside their resort in the British Columbia resort of Red Mountain Resort and became lost. The group was on vacation, traveling from Washington, U.S. They were staying at one of the Red Mountain Resort properties located near Rossland and got out of bounds of the normal skiing area.When skiing in unfamiliar territory, it is incredibly easy to get out of bounds. Even the smallest mistake and anyone can get lost, which is exactly what happened to this group, according to Dave Johnson, Rossland RCMP spokesman. Read the rest of this entry »

GPS, short for global positioning satellite, is a United States navigation system that utilizes 24 satellites originally placed into orbit for military use by the Department of Defense. Today, Americans use those satellites for a variety of civilian functions related to GPS tracking, navigation, and guidance. Other countries, however, are attempting to make their presences felt in the navigation, tracking, and positioning market.

Galileo

Europeans, uninterested in being dependent upon American systems began developing their own system. Galileo intends to offer basic navigation free of charge and offers both horizontal and vertical positioning accurate to within one meter. The positioning services are more accurate at higher latitudes with Galileo than with any other positioning services. Read the rest of this entry »