Toyota

USA: Forms to use for hybrid tax credits

If you’re in the United States, tax season is coming to a head. Can you take your hybrid credit? Can you take all of it? Can you carry forward the part you can’t use, or apply it to a previous year? Lots of questions to ask and be answered (and too many people sorely surprised by not getting the financial relief they expected).

I am not a tax professional, and this should not be considered professional advice. If you have any doubts about your abilities to do this on your own, please speak with an accountant. Thanks.

Like with other specialty credits, the ways of claiming (and sometimes, the ability to claim) the hybrid tax credit can be confusing. I should have bought a Prius when the full credit was available, but I waited and now there isn’t one at all. That’s right. Toyota and Lexus hybrids no longer qualify, and Honda hybrids won’t qualify for much longer. So what do you do if you need a credit to justify the extra expense of a new hybrid? Check out the credit schedule and see which models still qualify, and please, seriously consider whether any new car is in your budget. There’s a great conversation going on right now over at TreeHuggingFamily on the new green consumerism, and how buying eco-friendly isn’t always best for the environment … or anything else. Good reading.

Now. Let’s say, I look at the schedule and decide to go with a Ford Escape hybrid. I might get a $3000 tax credit. How can you tell if you’ll get the credit, or how much it will be? CNN Money did a good job of summing it up...

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