Upgrades include insulation, windows, doors, gas furnace + water heater, all of which meet the tax credit requirements.
No, the credits are available only for certain improvements made to second homes, and the credits are never available when the improvements are made to homes not used as a residence by the taxpayer. See Qualifying Residence.
Thank you, MaryK4, for the quick response.
Follow-up: Can our daughter, who co-owns the house with us, claim the energy credits? We (parents) wrote the check.
She could only take the credit if she paid for the upgrades, but if you provided the upgrade payments as a gift, and gave her the receipts she would be able to claim the credits. @Greyrock
@Greyrock wrote:
Thank you, MaryK4, for the quick response.
Follow-up: Can our daughter, who co-owns the house with us, claim the energy credits? We (parents) wrote the check.
For certain credits, you must own the home and live in it as your main home. For other credits, you must use the home as a residence, but it does not have to be your main residence (and you don't even have to own it). There are several tax code sections combined into the energy credits and they have different rules.
If you had paid your daughter and she had paid the contractors, she could claim the credit. You could argue that what you did is the same thing (at the bottom line), and sometimes the IRS will allow that argument. But the law does not specifically allow it, and if the contracts are between you and the installers, and you wrote the checks, it would be a significant risk if audited.