How Exactly Will The Tax Credit Work

My Nissan Leaf Forum

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halhoyt said:
We bought our LEAF in July, 2011. We applied for the tax credit of $7,500 by using IRS form 8936 with our 2011 income taxes. IRS disallowed the credit because we 'did not provided (sic) documentation to establish the criteria.' I called IRS and asked what I should provide as documentation. The agent looked up my file and could offer no suggestion. So I sent them another copy of the 8936, copies of the page in IRC 30D that lists the 2011 and 2012 Nissan Leafs as qualified plug-in Electric Drive motor vehicles, a copy of the bill of sale with the local Nissan dealer, a copy of the application for title and registration with the State of Tennessee, and a copy of the title. After 2 1/2 months of review they are still disallowing the credit. This time they are asking for a copy of 'the domestic distributor's certification if a foreign manufacturer and a copy of document to verify vehicle was placed in service.' The local Nissan salesman has no idea what that is. He's called higher up and I hope to talk with someone at Nissan today about it.

IRS is being heavy handed about it. They are assessing us for the $7500 tax credit, a $1500 (20%) penalty for underreporting our taxes owed by $7500, and interest to date from April 15, 2012.

Has anyone else had this problem? If so, how did you resolve it?

Wow -- that's unbelievable! Our Fed Credit went through fine (although I've used my own CPA to do our taxes for years as my wife had her own business and I like his work --- it was his first EV Fed Credit but they approved it no problem) but the real hassle came with our state (IL) forms for smaller amounts; we get up to $4K rebate on MSRP of the car and a 50% on the EVSE charger + install. They kicked back both (different agencies of course) but was able to resolve without too much hassle but a fair amount of back and forth; at least those didn't involve penalties -- my only concern with the state level rebates is that I'll pay income taxes on the rebates (IL will issue 1099's) but again my CPA says not to worry about it so I'm not. From the above you probably needed to send the Monroney sticker that should satisfy the 'foreign' manufacturer documentation and probably just a copy of the registration that shows when it was put into service --- it's not like they (IRS) hasn't seen these in the past but perhaps your local center isn't familiar with what their own agency accepts. For me, I don't mind paying someone that will back me up in situations like this --- we only had one deduction disallowed in the past but all it was is that we needed a FEIN (Federal ID number) that wasn't included in the original submitted return; they also wanted to hit us with penalties for the extra under-reported 'tax' but at least it was quickly resolved. Best of luck and let us know how it gets worked out ---
 
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