The remaining balance of my solar tax credit came back to me as a refund. I thought it was supposed to be credit you can use next year. Is this refund incorrect?

[jcmikaio]

We had a tax bill that the solar credit helped to cover.  The remaining $4k+ was deposited as a refund.  

[Mike9241]

we can't see your return. but you are correct. the Solar Credit can reduce your taxes to zero but any excess should not have been refunded.   what did your actual return show? review the second page of the 1040 (especially line 35 and 35a) and form 5695 - the carryover should be on line 16.   then if you don't see a reason for the refund contact the IRS for an explanation.  for example, if you had $4,000 in withholding taxes and your liability was reduced to zero that would be refunded.

[orcldba1]

This is also happening to me, turbotax is calculating the solar tax credit as refundable.  This is obviously wrong and no matter what I do (delete form, re add form..) it keeps wanting to refund the solar tax credit.  Can someone fix this?

[TeresaM]

You are correct, this is a non-refundable credit that can reduce your tax liability but should not increase a refund. To be sure what is happening in your return, I recommend to view the return after you pay and before you file but right now, you can preview Form 1040 and Schedules 1, 2, and 3, if they are included in the return. 

You can preview the information on your 1040 form by clicking on Tax Tools, on the left

• Select Tools 
• Then select View Tax Summary, first on the list under Helpful Links.  This will show basic information about the return.
• In the upper left-hand area, in the menu, click on Preview My 1040
• This will show a picture of the information on the tax form and there is a vertical scroll bar on the right-hand side, to scroll down the return. 
  
  The tax credits will be toward the bottom in Schedule 3, so you can check that the Solar credit is in the top section with the other non-refundable credits and also if there are other tax credits impacting your refund from the refundable section at the bottom.
  
  For more information about the Solar Energy Tax Credit, please click to see this TurboTax Help article.
  
  @orcldba1

[kshaffer]

did you figure out how to resolve the issue?