1099 from the State of Hawaii for Electric car rebate

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akohekohe

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 28, 2010
Messages
111
Location
O'ahu
Got a 1099-Misc from the State of Hawaii, Hawaii Electric Vehicle Ready Rebate Program today listing the $5,000 rebate I got for my Leaf as other income. Does anyone have an opinion on whether or not this is taxable income? I think not, but I've been known to be wrong on rare occasions.
 
That's odd--there were no 1099s issued for the CA state rebate. What was the source of funding for the HI rebate? How could two states interpret the IRS code for the same issue so differently?

TT
 
Due to time constraints my accountant filed my taxes with the Hawaii EV incentive rebate as income. She has stated that this isn't correct and the rebate, if anything, should be considered a price reduction, she doesn't quite understand the reasoning for calling this "income".

After calling the state and speaking to a series of people that seem not to know much she gave up, it was crunch time.

But she has continued looking into it and promised to file an amended for free when she gets the correct info.

Only in Hawaii!
 
It turns out it is taxable income. I talked to the IRS and the explained that because the rebate was paid by someone other than who I was purchasing the vehicle from it is taxable income. If it was a Nissan or dealer rebate it would have been considered a reduction in price. There is an exception in the law however for rebate paid by a utility for the purpose of reducing energy consumption. This is why the $50.00 rebate you get from HECO when you buy an energy star refrigerator is not taxable income. So, if the State had simply asked HECO to set up the rebate program and then reimbursed HECO for the rebates we could have received the rebate tax-free. Did our Governor (Lingle) think of that? Obviously not.
 
Just because you receive a 1099-MISC doesn't make it automatically taxable. OTOH not receiving a 1099 doesn't make something not taxable either.

10 years ago those of us that received the rebates from the state of CA received 1099-MISC and I'm unaware of anyone who didn't pay taxes on that was challenged for it. Put simply, we didn't pay taxes on it and that was just fine. Thankfully when buying the leaf this around I didn't have have deal with 1099-MISC but if I did I would have handled it the same way.

My accountant did point out that if IRS has the information then it should show up somewhere in your tax return but that doesn't mean you have pay taxes on it.

I'm not lawyer or a tax accountant and this advice is worth everything you paid for it.

arnold
 
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