TurboTax and EV Tax Credit

Line 3 of form 8936 asks for the date vehicle was placed in service. Did you enter a 2016 or 2017 date?

 

Feds don't seem to but CO does. In efiling using CO's state system, you can add attachments. I had to attach pdf's of registration card and vehicle purchase agreement

 

You may want to see if it's possible to file an amended return for 2016, assuming that you would have qualified for the credit that year

 

TY the problem with that is I owed no taxes that year. I took a Solar panel deduction.

 

Tax Hawk did not present me with this form.

 

I specifically asked the dealership about this point at the time, I rec no answer and the subject was forgotten in the buying hassle. What to do ?

 

I think the solar panel credit can be rolled over to future years unlike the credit for the Prime. Is it possible to amend your 2016 return to get a credit for the Prime for 2016 and apply the solar panel credit to 2017 or future years??

 

Reading the rules from the Form 8936, it say vehicles must be purchased on or after 2010. No qualifications in respect to a particular year.

 

I posted this in another thread somewhere...
The instructions for Form 8936 are quite clear...Check the right column of the first page.
https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-dft/i8936--dft.pdf

The following requirements must be met to qualify for the credit.
1) You are the owner of the vehicle. If the vehicle is leased, only the lessor and not the lessee, is entitled to the credit
2) You placed the vehicle in service during your tax year.
3) The vehicle is manufactured primarily for use on public streets, roads, and highways.
4) The original use of the vehicle began with you. You acquired the vehicle for use or to lease to others, and not for resale.
5) You use the vehicle primarily in the United States

 

Correct, the year is in the VIN. See this VIN decoder as an FYI.

 

The VIN identifies when the car was built.
I believe the tax credit is relative to when it was purchased/registered/put in service.

Your receipt or registration should provide proof of "in service" date.

 

When I put in the information it says "Electric Vehicle Credit is a nonrefundable credit, which means it can only reduce your tax liability to 0. The remainder cannot be refunded to you."

Does this sound right? First time doing this, anyone get this message too?

 

Yip.

 

They used extremely poor wording. What they are trying to say is that the amount of the credit that you qualify for cannot exceed your tax liability. Refund (or amount owed) is a separate subject and is related to how much you prepaid during the year.

It's already a confusing subject for many people and they aren't helping. What tax software is this?

 

Stuguy gave you a very important recommendation, however it is not clear from your reply if it is a possibility for you. If you are able to amend your 2016 return and remove the solar credit then you would have tax liability for that year that the plug-in credit could be applied to, then you would take the solar credit in 2017. Worth looking into I would think as it may be your only possibility. The only other choice is to enter an in-service date of January 1st 2017 however none of us can tell you to do that because only you know when the car was put into service. I'm not sure how the IRS would treat this in an audit, seeing a bill of sale in December do they take the taxpayer's word that it was placed into service in January.

Since it's not a trivial amount of money here you may want to get some assistance from a tax consultant

 

Andy I think you are OK but your software might have made an mistake on Form 8936 so you need to show you put in service 2017. Or else they are just checking on you.

 

Well it looks like for anyone using TurboTax the new "Available to file" date is 3/2/2018. The form 8936 was finalized by the IRS on ~2/23/18. This time the "estimated" date should finally be a true file date.

I have been waiting since about 1/19/2018 to file this. Will be happy to get this submitted. Hope it all works out for you guys as well!

-JT