I am a victim of the Form 8936 error when I filed on 2/14/2020. After I filled in the information for the EV credit I noticed that TurboTax calculated the wrong EV credit value so I put $1,875 for the credit (per IRS) to claim and after filing I received a rejection email. The TurboTax email didn't clearly explain the problem but said to refile on 2/20/2020. I logged back into TurboTax to see if there were any obvious errors in the EV credit data but didn't see any. I looked at Line 4c of Form 8936 and it correctly listed $1,875 so I figured I would wait for TurboTax to fix their software as the email didn't specify what the error was and I didn't know what to look for.
On 2/20/2020 I logged back in and TurboTax said everything was fixed and I should just continue to refile. However, I noticed that the refund amount was lower than expected so I revisited the EV credit section and noticed that TurboTax said I would get an EV credit of $469, not the expected $1,875. I changed the EV credit from $1,875 to $7,500 and then TurboTax correctly said I would get an EV credit of $1,875. I tried other values and TurboTax just blindly divided it by 4.
Upon further analysis of my 2/14/2020 Form 8936 I noticed that Line 4a showed $1,875 (this should have been $7,500), Line 4b correctly showed 25.00%, and Line 4c correctly showed $1,875. The 2/20/2020 TurboTax software fixes the math on the form but not the section where you input the data.
After changing the EV credit to $7,500 in TurboTax, Form 8936 now shows $7,500 on Line 4a so hopefully my resubmitted return will be accepted.
Lesson Learned: Don't assume software fixes are properly implemented. Had I believed that TurboTax was fixed I would have received a $469 EV credit instead of $1,875.
TurboTax Design/Software Problem Report: The EV credits are listed on the IRS website that you provide a link to your users. The software should use this information rather than relying on user inputs that can potentially be incorrect. The user should enter the date of purchase and the VIN which the software can decode into make and model which can be confirmed by the user or rejected and then allowed to manually enter in Vehicle and EV credit information (including phase out information). For vehicles listed on the IRS website, the software can determine the correct EV credit and the users won't have to waste their time looking up gross vehicle weights or looking up the EV credit they think their vehicle qualifies for. Since users are not expected to look up taxes in the IRS tables to input it into TurboTax, users should not need to look up EV credits on the IRS website to enter it into TurboTax. TurboTax should allow exceptions but should not penalize all users to input information readily available from the IRS.
Update 2/21/2020 (updated):
The IRS has accepted the updated form that I filed on 2/20/2020.
Since others on this forum have also encountered this problem, I would suggest Intuit audit all of the Form 8936 victims to see if they are getting the correct EV credit amounts and contact them if they aren't getting the correct EV credit. Some people may not have noticed that the "fixed" Form 8936 contained the wrong EV credit amounts and TurboTax may not have flagged it as an error so some people may not receive the correct EV credit.
