IRS wont, or cant, reveal how many plug-in vehicle tax credits are left Are you an aspiring New or Used Car Buyer looking for your dream car? Visit Cars4sa.co.za Filed under: EV/Plug-in, AutoblogGreen Exclusive The IRS has set up a page to help track individual automaker sales figures, but its a complete mess. One of the benefits of driving a plug-in vehicle these days is a federal tax credit worth up to $7,500. Officially called IRC 30D, this credit is intended to make the high cost of new EVs sting less for early adopters. Of course, free government money doesnt last forever, and when the tax credit law was first passed in as part of the Energy Improvement and Extension Act of 2008, lawmakers built in a phase out. The rules say that the tax credit only lasts for each automaker until its first 200,000 EVs have been sold. After that, a companys qualifying vehicles (list here) will gradually net their buyers smaller and smaller tax credits - first 50 percent of the full amount for six months, then 25 percent for the next six months - over the following year until theyre just gone. Weve got the laws specific language at the end of this article.Why This Matters Lets be clear: no automaker has come close to selling 200,000 plug-in vehicles in the US. Nissan and Chevrolet are closest with over 60,000 each of the Leaf and Volt, respectively, and Tesla is catching up. Still, EVs sales are doing better than some might expect, and with around 250,000 EVs sold throughout the US from all automakers - up from just 130,000 a year ago - were likely to hit the 200,000 target before we know it. With that in mind, itd be nice to know how the various companies and plug-in vehicles are selling. Automakers are supposed to file their sales numbers quarterly and the Internal Revenue Service is supposed to share those official numbers with the public (more on this below), but when you try to look up the data, things quickly get messy. If if its not clear how many the IRS says are sold, then how will anyone know when the tax credits run out? The IRS has set up a page that is supposed to help buyers figure out how much time is left for plug-in vehicle buyers to get a tax credit, and it tracks individual automaker sales figures. Trouble is, its a complete mess. There are years worth of data that the IRS is not making available to the public. Or perhaps some of its the automakers fault. Some plug-in models - most of them, in fact - dont even show up on the chart. This all needs to be fixed before someone goes to buy a Leaf, for example, expecting to get money back and then is served a nasty surprise. We know that when incentives run out, sales tend to suffer. Continue reading IRS wont, or cant, reveal how many plug-in vehicle tax credits are left IRS wont, or cant, reveal how many plug-in vehicle tax credits are left originally appeared on Autoblog Green on Thu, 18 Sep 2014 14:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments
Posted on: Thu, 18 Sep 2014 19:22:12 +0000
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