I bought an electric car and installed a charging station in 2020. Turbo tax gives me the tax credit for the car but not the charging station. Why?

[JohnW152]

Maybe.

The Qualified Plug-in Electric Drive Motor Vehicle Credit, Personal use part, on Form 8936, Part III, and the Alternative Fuel Vehicle Refueling Property Credit, on Form 8911, are both non-refundable credits.

They can only apply to offset your tax; if your tax is greater than both credits, they’ll both be applied fully.  

If not, they’ll only be applied to the extent of the tax.

The IRS has a specific order in which credits are to be applied to offset tax.

As far as the credits you’re inquiring about, they’re applied to tax in this order:

1. Qualified Plug-in Electric Drive Motor Vehicle Credit, Personal use part, Form 8936, Part III

2. Alternative Fuel Vehicle Refueling Property Credit, Form 8911.

So, after your Form 8936 credit is applied to tax, any amount of tax remaining will be offset by your Form 8911 credit if there’s any tax left to offset.

See the Instructions for Form 8936 and Instructions for Form 8911 for more information.  

@TrentJA

[TrentJA]

That all tracks. 

After a deeper dive I discovered it's not that I'm running into AMT, but, I am running into tentative minimum tax limits keeping me from filing the credit for 8911.  Even though I have tax left after my 8936 credits the additional credit would take me below the tentative minimum tax as figured on form 6251. 

Darn shame - I would have paced myself and installed the charger this year. At least I got a good tax lesson? 😕 

Thanks @JohnW152 

[alewitt2]

it is now the year 2022 and I too have bought my car and installed a charger in the same year, and have run into this issue. It appears the law was written in a way to prevent most people from qualifying for this credit unless they do by accident or knew about the law in advance. While it seems counterintuitive, my guess is it was very much intentional.. a way to allow something to be passed into law without actually allowing it.

[ozturkender]

Hello,

I'm having the same issue, but not sure why. How am I supposed to find my 8911 form in TurboTax interface?

Thanks

Ender

[ozturkender]

hello

how did you make sure the issue is about the tentative tax calculation? I'm having the same but Turbotax interface doesn't reveal much background info.

[alewitt2]

I first just manually did the worksheets on my own. Then to double check, I also removed the $7500 ev credit and looked at the documents TurboTax creates to see what they came up with.

[lakksh]

I'm still going through the issue as TT doesn't give me a credit for EV charging station but it does for the EV car. Deleting the car provides credit for the charging station. Multiple calls to TT didn't solve but was asked to upgrade. I asked who would fix the software but poor customer service. I guess it is time to move on to different software.

[alewitt2]

unless you are itemizing, it is highly unlikely you will be able to qualify for both credits.

There is a special stipulation for the EV charging station credit that says you cant have the credit if it brings you below your tentative minimum tax (This is associated with, but different than the alternative minimum tax). the instructions for form 8911 specifically say:

---

Line 17
Although you may not owe alternative minimum tax (AMT), you must still figure the tentative minimum tax (TMT) to figure your credit. Complete and attach the applicable AMT form or schedule and enter the TMT on line 17.
Line 19
If you can’t use part of the personal portion of the credit because of the tax liability limit, the unused credit is lost. The unused personal portion of the credit can’t be carried back or forward to other tax years.

---

Basically, 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 no longer allowed.  

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. 

[alewitt2]

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@lakksh wrote:

I'm still going through the issue as TT doesn't give me a credit for EV charging station but it does for the EV car. Deleting the car provides credit for the charging station. Multiple calls to TT didn't solve but was asked to upgrade. I asked who would fix the software but poor customer service. I guess it is time to move on to different software.

---

Its unfortunate that they tried to get you to upgrade, as this seems like poor customer service, but i dont think its a glitch in the software, i just think they werent able to get you to understand whats actually going on. Hopefully in the future they will add more info to make this specific credit's stipulations clearer.

[lakksh]

Thanks. I can only see summary for form 1040 and not form 8911. Under tax tools, it lets me delete the forms but not able to view individual forms,

[alewitt2]

you wont be able to see 8911 if you have the $7500 EV credit still in there, because TT determined you dont qualify for it, so they dont include it. If you want to see how turbo tax fills out 8911, remove the EV credit and then look at the summary.

Note: they wont actually let you look at individual forms until you pay. it makes sense since they dont want you stealing from them. But once you pay, you can go to Tax Tools > Print Center > "Print, save, or preview this years return"

[MeDoingTaxes]

Thank you and the others for this info!!! I thought I was going crazy. My plug-in purchase also took me over the TMT, preventing me from getting the charger credit. Can't blame TurboTax for implementing Federal tax law as it passed.

For the downloaded software version, the TMT result can be found by going to "Other Tax Situations," click on "update" for the AMT, then "edit," then answering the checkboxes, and then when it shows your AMT, click "show more."

[lakksh]

In my case, it doesn't show any for both AMT or Tentative minimum tax. My guess is there is a inherest issue with Turbotax and not sure how long it takes to correct the issue by TT team. There is way no I can reach them to fix the issue. 

[JohnW152]

@lakksh 

In your first post on this page, you note that deleting the electric vehicle credit allows your credit for the charging station.  This wouldn't necessarily always be the case, but it wouldn't be unexpected, either.  If you have significant credits, as described below, you may not be able to claim the charging station credit, even if you don't actually owe alternative minimum tax.

You have to take into account the computation for net regular tax, which is a computation made on line 16 of Form 8911.  This amount equals your regular tax before credits (line 14), minus certain credits reflected on line 15. 

This net regular tax is then compared to your tentative minimum tax (line 17).  If your tentative minimum tax is greater than your net regular tax, you can't claim the credit. 

You can walk through this looking at the forms linked below. It's an involved computation.

If you'll look at Form 8911, Alternative Fuel Vehicle Refueling Property Credit, you'll note that line 15 reflects credits that reduce your regular tax (line 14) before the alternative fuel vehicle refueling property credit will be applied.  This includes foreign tax credit on line 15a.

But it also includes certain credits included on line 15b.  If you'll look at Line 15b in the Instructions for Form 8911, the taxpayer is instructed to:

Enter the total of any credits on Form 1040, 1040-SR, or 1040-NR, line 19, and Schedule 3 (Form 1040), lines 2 through 5, and 7 (reduced by any general business credit reported on line 6a, any credit for prior year minimum tax reported on line 6b, or any credit to holders of tax credit bonds reported on line 6k).

So, line 15b is:

• Form 1040, line 19, which is Child tax credit or credit for other dependents from Schedule 8812, plus
• Schedule 3 (further down the Form 1040 page in the Schedule 3 link), line 2, which is Credit for child and dependent care expenses from Form 2441, line 11, plus
• Schedule 3, line 3, which is Education credits from Form 8863, line 19, plus
• Schedule 3, line 4, which is Retirement savings contributions credit from Form 8880, plus
• Schedule 3, line 5, which is Residential energy credits from Form 5695, plus
• Schedule 3, line 7, Total other nonrefundable credits, reduced by any general business credit reported on line 6a, any credit for prior year minimum tax reported on line 6b, or any credit to holders of tax credit bonds reported on line 6k.

So, if you have any of these credits, they'll combine to lower your net regular tax from what your regular tax amount is. 

In the end, net regular tax on line 16 equals line 14 (regular tax before credits) minus line 15 (the foreign tax credit plus any of the credits listed above).

If your tentative minimum tax on line 17 is greater than the net regular tax amount on line 16, you can't claim the refueling property credit.