I live in South Carolina, but work in North Carolina. I got solar panels this year: how will state credit work since I don't pay taxes in South Carolina?

[daniel-s-waller]

I was told I would get a federal and state credit, but it just dawned on me and I have no idea if NC will honor the tax or what. Again I don't pay SC tax so...

[Critter]

You should be filing a non resident NC & a resident SC return where you would get credit for the taxes you paid in NC.  Now this may mean that you have no tax liability on the SC return if the credit covers it all ... if so the solar credit will be useless on the SC return.

Now the good news is the unused credit can be carried forward for use later ... but if nothing changes you will continue to get the same result ...

https://solarpowerrocks.com/south-carolina/de-ciphering-the-south-carolina-solar-energy-tax-credits/

[Quillan13]

So if I'm understanding this correctly, if you work out of the state you live in you can never claim your solar tax credit so we're just losing out on thousands of dollars because we work in  another state?

[SteamTrain]

Certainly, it depends on the states involved....and how they calculate the credit. Living an income-taxing state and working in a non-taxing state, you'd end up with no "other State" credit, so if you have enough taxable state income, the "state" energy credit should be available.

And for the Federal Energy Credits, which state you work in is immaterial to the credit calculation....which could be greater than the state credit for the same installation $$ (not sure about CA though).