Form 720 is the federal tax return where fuel excise taxes are reported, filed every quarter. It is how the per-gallon tax collected on fuel reaches the government.
Federal excise tax is a per-gallon charge on highway fuel. Someone in the supply chain collects it when the fuel is sold, and Form 720 is the return that reports those taxes to the IRS four times a year. Fuel is only one part of the form, but for a fuel business it is the main reason to file.
The work is in the records behind it. You report the gallons by product and the tax due on each, so the totals have to match what your invoices and load tickets show. A clean set of books makes the filing routine. Loose records turn it into a scramble every quarter.
Filing on time and accurately matters because the amounts are large. On most loads the excise tax is bigger than the seller’s own margin, so an error or a late return can cost far more than the profit on the fuel involved.
In useAt the end of each quarter the office pulls the gallons by product and files Form 720, and the numbers tie straight back to the load tickets for the period.
See also Motor fuel excise tax, Form 637