Federal tax credit

Your "Accountant" must have messed up. Line#17 should be blank. Your vehicle has 4 wheels. The $2500 limit is only for less than 4 wheels.

 

did you pay more than $2,500. in fed taxes?

 

Your accountant may have incorrectly used the credit for "2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 Toyota Prius Plug-in Electric Drive Vehicle", category which is $2500 (IRS 8936 line 4a) instead of the correct $4502 amount. Or, as Bisco noted, you may not have sufficient tax liability.

 

Unless the vehicle is being used for business or investment, you should not even be in section II (line 10) Part II Credit for Business/Investment Use Part of Vehicle.

The instructions after line 4 state: Next: If you did NOT use your vehicle for business or investment purposes and did not have a credit from a partnership or S corporation, skip Part II and go to Part III. All others, go to Part II.

Check that line 4c has $4502 and is also entered into line 15. I'd bet dollars to donuts that the accountant incorrectly used the $2500 amount in line 4, as it is unlikely that you had a tax liability of exactly $2500.​

 

I used TurboTax and got the correct amount, $4502

 

Great! Got a letter from the IRS saying I'm missing form 8834. That's like for 2 or 3 wheeled vehicles. I used TurboTax and included form 8936. Thanks IRS for delaying my refund check.

 

H&R Block tried the same with me a couple of days ago. It went from 4502 to 2000. The lady doing my taxes got the office manager to look it over. None of them had done a EV tax credit before so they ended up looking at the IRS web pages I had already looked up. The manager keyed on one section that said only business use got 100% of the credit. When I said that didnt apply she got kind of rude with me, kept insisting people dont understand how tax credits work, talking down to me like a child. When she insinuated that I was asking them to do something illegal that was when I got riled up.

While I was having it out with the manager the lady doing my taxes said she was going to go back and double check what had been done so far. She found something to do with the medical coverage wasn't right, fixed it, and all the sudden the full 4502 was showing up. We finished up while the manager kept trying to make excuses. I'm glad the lady actually doing my taxes was so calm otherwise I would have walked out.

 

this is all way too complicated. next round of credits should be simplified, and spread over multiple years for those who don't qualify.
or maybe just rebate the mfg for every car sold and have the discount on the mulroney.

 

My accountant is telling me that because I bought a 2017 in 2018, I am not eligible for the tax credit, that it is only for vehicles purchased in 2017 that weren't put into service until 2018. Is that true?

**Update - never mind. She just called to let me know that I can take it. She was confused because of the change in 2-wheel vehicle eligibility. Phew!!!**

 

Wow, how do any of your accountants still have their licenses...

 

I think she just has tax prep fatigue at this point. I do think the instructions on form 8936 are a bit confusing if your eyes are tired:
"Use this form to claim the credit for certain plug-in electric vehicles (including qualified two-wheeled plug-in electric vehicles acquired in 2017 but not placed in service until 2018)."

 

ultimately, we're all responsible for our accountants mistakes. it's a harsh reality.

 

Sadly true. At least she called me first with the bad news, then with the corrected good news. I pointed out that she was reading the form incorrectly, and then the tax department manager confirmed it. A $4502 tax credit means a lot to me, for sure!

 

i just got my returns from my cap of 20 years. she is usually very good, but somehow forgot my $6,000. state tax credit for a new septic system, which we spoke about several times, and i had sent her all the paperwork.

someone said 'bad time of year', definitely. and yet, it's the only time of year that matters.

 

Battery size in tax form decides total amount. Make sure it is 8.8 to get $4502 back!

 

Right First you have to gather up all the info they need and when they are done you have to make sure they did it right. If you can figure that out, who needs them? Turbotax isn't very expensive.

Tell your uninformed CPA's to read this:
Federal Tax Credits for All-Electric and Plug-in Hybrid Vehicles

 

I never considered myself tax literate but have been using Turbo Tax for years. The Federal is the easy part, Indiana State tax takes a lot of time mostly to get all the numbers together.

I don't buy Turbo Tax and install it on my computer, I do it online and have access to all my old tax returns.

 

Online or not, I assume once you finish all inputs for Federal, you don't have much to do for state. At that applies to me in CA.

 

Do keep local copies. They lost one of mine, the first time I did it online.