It is Time to File For Your EV Federal Tax Credit

One month from today, your 2011 Federal and state tax returns will be due.

(It would have been a month from yesterday, but April 15 falls on a Sunday this year.)

So consider this your friendly reminder to make sure that if you bought a plug-in car during 2011, you remember to apply for the Federal income-tax credit of $2,500 to $7,500, depending on its battery pack size.

Details of the Federal credit are completed on either Form 8936 (for regular cars) or Form 8834 (for two- and three-wheeled vehicles or low-speed electric cars). Each form has instructions attached.

Other credits include those for installation costs of an "alternative fuel vehicle refueling property credit," which means for most buyers a home electric-car charging station (Form 8911), and for conversion of a gasoline car to a plug-in vehicle (Form 8910).

Of those four incentives, the credit for purchase of a regular plug-in vehicle remains in effect for 2012, but the other three expired on December 31. You can still claim them on your 2011 taxes, but that will be the last year--except for the purchase credit.

If you leased the plug-in car, mind you--most likely a Nissan Leaf or Chevrolet Volt--you don't get to claim the credit. Instead, it's been claimed by the leaseholder, who used the money to reduce your monthly payment.

Money, money, money

While analysts largely agree that purchase rebates, which arrive in the form of a check just a few weeks after purchase, are better than income-tax credits, the incentive is nonetheless a welcome reduction in the high cost of a plug-in car.

As for state, regional, local, and corporate incentives on top of the Federal credit, they're far too numerous to go into here.

The advocacy group Plug-In America keeps a list of every incentive it's identified, available online.

Check your local area for those that may apply to you, and dream about Hawaii, which offers a $4,500 rebate on top of the Federal credit.

Sadly, the famous Colorado state credit that allowed buyers of $109,000 Tesla Roadsters to take $42,000 off their taxes expired at the end of 2009.

Ah, well.

Source: Green Car Reports

Obama’s New Budget Calls For $10,000 Rebate For Electric Cars

It’s an election year, which means the partisan political bickering is only getting warmed up. So it is no surprise that politicians on the right side of the aisle are already calling Obama’s proposed 2012 budget nothing more than a “campaign” document. Among the many provisions Obama outlines in his proposal is billions of dollars in infrastructure funding, in addition to a $10,000 rebate for the purchase of electric and other green-tech vehicles.

We’re going to focus on that proposal, because it would dramatically change the dynamic for electric vehicles. Right now, the $7,500 tax rebate (enacted by George W. Bush) means that buyers pay the full price of a vehicle like the Chevy Volt up front. Come tax time, they can deduct up to $7,500 from their taxable income.

The problem with this rebate is that it forces would-be EV buyers to come up with the cash up front. Obama’s proposal would turn the tax credit into a $10,000 rebate, which comes off the price of the car at the point of sale. So instead of making payments on a $41,000 Volt, buyers would make payments on a $31,000 Volt. For the Nissan LEAF, the price would come down to about $26,000; the Mitsubishi i would squeek in at under $20,000.

I’m not sure this rebate stands a chance of getting through a divided Congress, but it would be a huge boon to the electric vehicle business. Right now there is legitimate criticism that the tax credit favors wealthy buyers who can afford higher payments for a lower tax rate. It is said that the income of the average Chevy Volt buyer is about $170,000, which makes sense as a lot of celebrities like Jay Leno flocked to the Volt when it first came out. This rebate would make the payments easier to swallow for the average American.

Incredibly, the $10,000 rebate could also be applied to natural gas vehicles and other high-tech, green cars. That would open up a lot of options.

I for one would run out and buy a Nissan LEAF tomorrow if this proposal actually gets passed. How could I not? For about $300 a month, I could have an all-electric car. That’s almost my entire monthly gas tab between me and my girlfriend.

Source: Gas2.0

Electric Car Tax Credit Seems Safe For Now

For now, the electric-car purchase Federal income-tax credit remains safe.

As we've written before, though, December 31 is the last day in which you can install an electric-car charging station and be able to deduct some of the costs from your income taxes.

That credit allowed private individuals to take a credit for up to 30 percent of the cost of installing an electric-car charging station in their home on their income tax return. The maximum allowed credit was $1,000.

Two other less-used credits expire on the 31st as well. One is for purchase of a two- or three-wheeled electric vehicle (mostly the electric bicycles and mopeds flooding in from China, but it also applied to electric motorcycles from Brammo, Zero, and other makers).

The other is for some of the costs of converting an existing vehicle from gasoline to a plug-in powertrain.

Neither of those credits is likely to have been used to the same extent as the electric-car purchase incentive, which ranges from $2,500 (for a vehicle with at least a 4-kilowatt-hour battery pack, like the 2012 Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid) to $7,500 (for a vehicle like the Nissan Leaf or Chevrolet Volt, with a pack of 16 kWh or larger).

Brammo CEO Craig Bramscher with 2011 Enertia

The advocacy group Plug-In America has fought to retain the credits, but with Congress home for the holidays, they will expire on schedule after Saturday.

According to the group's legislative director Jay Friedland, it's possible they will be reinstated at a later date as part of further payroll-tax extension legislation.

Meanwhile, the three electric-vehicle credits are set to join the decades-old ethanol blending incentive and import duty on the scrapheap of terminated government subsidies for new technologies.

We'll leave it to you, our readers, to discuss among yourselves which of these credits should have been retained.

Source: Green Car Reports