My return is calculating $0 for my electric vehicle charging station, I should qualify as far as I can tell.

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
March 6, 2022
2 replies
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I spent about $3000 on an EV charge station for my new EV. Form 8911 says I should be entitled to up to $1000 tax credits (30% of $3000 would be $900 for me), but TurboTax says it's $0. Am I doing something wrong? It did properly give me my $7500 credit for the EV itself.

Thanks!

AnnetteB6

There are a couple of things that can cause the Alternative Fuel Vehicle Refueling Property Credit to be reduced to zero.

First, the credit is non-refundable and you must have a tax liability in order to take advantage of the credit. Also, the calculation of possible Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) is involved in the calculation of the credit and may reduce it to zero.

There is a tentative minimum tax for AMT that is calculated in the background as your return is completed. Form 8911 compares that tentative minimum tax to the net regular tax after certain other credits have been taken into account. If the tentative minimum tax is greater than the net regular tax, then the Form 8911 credit is disallowed.

Take a look at your Form 8911, lines 16, 17, and 18. If line 17 is greater than line 16, then your personal credit for Form 8911 will be disallowed.

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rgonyerAuthor

So I believe I have found a bug in the software having to do with the charging station credit. My itemized deductions are very close to our standard deduction, but were just a bit less. When I entered the charging station info, the software said I had a $0 credit for the station since other factors disallowed the credit.

I carried along until I got to the point where the software said "The standard deduction is right for you!". Just to experiment, I clicked "Change my deduction", and changed it to Itemized Deductions. My refund went up by ~$900, even though it suggested I used the standard deduction. I went back through my forms to see what had changed since I selected Itemized.... and the $900 was now appearing for my charging station install. I wonder if the charging station credit is only showing up if you itemize, but that is not being factored into the total itemized amount that would put you over the standard deduction?

AnnetteB6

If you would be willing to share a diagnostic copy of your tax file, it could be helpful to examine the situation in more detail to be certain what is happening and whether anything needs to be reported to the development team. The diagnostic file will not contain personally identifiable information, only numbers related to your tax forms.

To do so, follow the instructions below and post the token number along with which version of TurboTax you are using (Online or CD/downloaded and which edition) in a follow-up thread.

Use these steps if you are using TurboTax Online:

Sign in to your account and be sure you are in your tax return.
Select Tax Tools in the menu to the left.
Select Tools.
Select Share my file with agent.
A pop-up message will appear, select OK to send the sanitized diagnostic copy to us.
Post the token number here.

If you are using a CD/downloaded version of TurboTax, use these steps: