§4053 — Title 26 Internal Revenue Code | U.S. Code

Summary

Certain truck-related items escape the federal retail tax that normally applies to heavy trucks and trailers under section 4051. No tax is charged on camper units built to sit on a truck and serve as living quarters, house trailers, ambulances, hearses, or bodies built to haul, spread, or load feed, seed, or fertilizer on farms. Concrete-mixing equipment mounted on truck chassis, trash containers not permanently attached to a truck, and trailers built to run on both highways and railroad tracks are also exempt. The exemption also covers mobile machinery: a chassis that exists only to carry permanently mounted construction, farming, mining, or similar equipment, and that could not haul anything else without major structural changes. Finally, idling-reduction devices that give a parked truck heat, air conditioning, or electricity without running the main engine (if the EPA approves them as idle reducers) and insulation rated at least R35 per inch are tax-free.

Title 26, §4053

Internal Revenue Code — Source: USLM XML via OLRC

No tax shall be imposed by section 4051 on any of the following articles:

(1)Any article designed—

(A)to be mounted or placed on automobile trucks, automobile truck chassis, or automobile chassis, and

(B)to be used primarily as living quarters or camping accommodations.

(2)Any body primarily designed—

(A)to process or prepare seed, feed, or fertilizer for use on farms,

(B)to haul feed, seed, or fertilizer to and on farms,

(C)to spread feed, seed, or fertilizer on farms,

(D)to load or unload feed, seed, or fertilizer on farms, or

(E)for any combination of the foregoing.

(3)Any house trailer.

(4)Any ambulance, hearse, or combination ambulance-hearse.

(5)Any article designed—

(A)to be placed or mounted on an automobile truck chassis or truck trailer or semitrailer chassis, and

(B)to be used to process or prepare concrete.

(6)Any box, container, receptacle, bin or other similar article—

(A)which is designed to be used as a trash container and is not designed for the transportation of freight other than trash, and

(B)which is not designed to be permanently mounted on or permanently affixed to an automobile truck chassis or body.

(7)Any chassis or body of a trailer or semitrailer which is designed for use both as a highway vehicle and a railroad car. For purposes of the preceding sentence, piggy-back trailer or semitrailer shall not be treated as designed for use as a railroad car.

(8)Any vehicle which consists of a chassis—

(A)to which there has been permanently mounted (by welding, bolting, riveting, or other means) machinery or equipment to perform a construction, manufacturing, processing, farming, mining, drilling, timbering, or similar operation if the operation of the machinery or equipment is unrelated to transportation on or off the public highways,

(B)which has been specially designed to serve only as a mobile carriage and mount (and a power source, where applicable) for the particular machinery or equipment involved, whether or not such machinery or equipment is in operation, and

(C)which, by reason of such special design, could not, without substantial structural modification, be used as a component of a vehicle designed to perform a function of transporting any load other than that particular machinery or equipment or similar machinery or equipment requiring such a specially designed chassis.

(9)Any device or system of devices which—

(A)is designed to provide to a vehicle those services (such as heat, air conditioning, or electricity) that would otherwise require the operation of the main drive engine while the vehicle is temporarily parked or remains stationary using one or more devices affixed to a tractor, and

(B)is determined by the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, in consultation with the Secretary of Energy and the Secretary of Transportation, to reduce idling of such vehicle at a motor vehicle rest stop or other location where such vehicles are temporarily parked or remain stationary.

(10)Any insulation that has an R value of not less than R35 per inch.

Notes & Related Subsidiaries

Editorial Notes

Prior Provisions

A prior section 4053, acts Aug. 16, 1954, ch. 736, 68A Stat. 479; Sept. 2, 1958, Pub. L. 85–859, title I, § 104, 72 Stat. 1276, made provision for the imposition of the retailers tax on installment sales, prior to repeal by Pub. L. 94–455, title XIX, § 1904(a)(1)(D), Oct. 4, 1976, 90 Stat. 1811. For provisions of prior sections 4054 to 4058 of this title, see

Prior Provisions

note set out preceding section 4041 of this title.

Amendments

2008—Pars. (9), (10). Pub. L. 110–343 added pars. (9) and (10). 2004—Par. (8). Pub. L. 108–357 added par. (8). 1984—Pub. L. 98–369 amended section generally, substituting provisions listing articles on which no tax under section 4051 shall be imposed for former provisions which stated that no tax be imposed under section 4051 on any article specified in subsection (a) of section 4063 and that the exemptions provided by section 4221(a) extended to the tax imposed by section 4051.

Statutory Notes and Related Subsidiaries

Effective Date

of 2008 Amendment Pub. L. 110–343, div. B, title II, § 206(b), Oct. 3, 2008, 122 Stat. 3839, provided that: “The amendment made by this section [amending this section] shall apply to sales or installations after the date of the enactment of this Act [Oct. 3, 2008].”

Effective Date

of 2004 Amendment Pub. L. 108–357, title VIII, § 851(a)(2), Oct. 22, 2004, 118 Stat. 1607, provided that: “The amendment made by this subsection [amending this section] shall take effect on the day after the date of the enactment of this Act [Oct. 22, 2004].”

Effective Date

of 1984 AmendmentAmendment by Pub. L. 98–369 effective, except as otherwise provided, as if included in the provisions of the Highway Revenue Act of 1982, title V of Pub. L. 97–424, to which such amendment relates, see section 736 of Pub. L. 98–369, set out as a note under section 4051 of this title.

§4053 Exemptions

Summary

Title 26, §4053

Notes & Related Subsidiaries

Editorial Notes

Prior Provisions

Prior Provisions

Amendments

Statutory Notes and Related Subsidiaries

Effective Date

Effective Date

Effective Date

Citations & Metadata