- Some dealers might not have reported EV sales correctly and now some buyers face tax headaches.
- Clean vehicle tax credit rules are complicated — and will not work for everyone.
- President Donald Trump might ultimately put an end to EV tax credits for consumers, according to some experts.
- National Automobile Dealers Association says the IRS portal to report EV sales didn’t work properly in some cases.
Taxpayers could fall into plenty of potholes if someone takes a wrong turn when claiming an attractive tax credit for buying an electric vehicle on their 2024 tax return. And they might get into trouble if their dealer didn’t correctly report the sale or ran into issues with a new IRS portal.
The Internal Revenue Service will reject those returns — and has already done so for some early filers — and delay your refund, if you run into a glitch. You might end up getting a notice from the IRS that you’ll need to address.
The rules relating to EV tax credits shifted gears in 2024, which made it easier to use a tax credit to buy EVs and plug-in hybrids and get money upfront instead of waiting to file a tax return.
Beginning in 2024, EV buyers could receive an “instant rebate” at the time of purchase at the dealership when buying an emission-free car or truck. Or buyers could wait to claim the credit when filing a tax return. You have a choice.
But the tax rules remained strict, which means many people don’t qualify for taking a tax credit now.
Worse yet, some buyers experienced glitches after dealers made mistakes or faced troubles with the new system.
Some consumers have been unable to claim new clean vehicle tax credits when they file their taxes due to discrepancies between clean-vehicle time-of-sale reports and IRS records, said Jared Allen, vice president of public affairs for the National Automobile Dealers Association.
IRS data indicates that only 7% of consumers who were eligible for a new clean vehicle tax credit between Jan. 1 and Oct. 1, 2024, opted to receive the credit when they filed their taxes, Allen said.
The majority of buyers, he said, “opted to receive the credit upfront in the form of ‘cash on the hood’ at the time of sale.” And those buyers who benefited at the point of sale don’t now qualify for a tax credit when filing a tax return.
It’s important to realize that you cannot claim a clean vehicle tax credit, if you already benefited from it when you bought the vehicle. “That’s called double-dipping,” said Mike Mader, principal and leader of Baker Tilly’s dealership practice.
A second scoop is great for a dish of ice cream. “Not for tax law. It doesn’t work,” Mader said.
The credits can be up to $7,500 for eligible new EVs and up to $4,000 for eligible used electric vehicles. For vehicles placed in service April 18, 2023, and after, for example, you’d receive up to $3,750 if the vehicle meets the critical minerals requirement only. An eligible clean vehicle can’t contain any critical minerals that were sourced by a “foreign entity of concern,” such as China.
Or you’d receive up to $3,750 if the vehicle meets the battery components requirement only. Or you’d receive up to $7,500 if the new qualifying EV meets both.
Starting in January 2024, dealers turned to the IRS Energy Credits Online website to determine credit eligibility and the amount of the credit at the time of sale.
The dealer must complete and submit the time-of-sale report online. The report is to be accepted or rejected in real time. The time-of-sale report is due within 72 hours of the vehicle being placed in service.
The IRS automated their systems so that they could give a real time verification based on the vehicle identification number.
If the buyer wanted the money upfront, Allen said, the dealer was then responsible for securing reimbursement for the credit through the IRS portal. NADA is aware, he said, of instances where dealers have been unable to secure their own reimbursement due to portal issues.
And there are issues where taxpayers are having trouble getting the correct paperwork to obtain the credit.
“We have heard from dealers who have attempted to re-file time-of-sale reports on behalf of their customers but were not able to do so successfully because the IRS is not accepting submissions past the three-day deadline following the sale,” Allen said.
NADA is advocating aggressively for the IRS to remedy this and other issues, Allen said, by immediately reopening another window for dealers to file late time-of-sale reports from 2024.
Allen said the group, which represents more than 16,000 new car dealers, has been continuously engaged with the IRS to resolve “many portal-related issues that dealers have faced throughout the year.”
“Dealers have faced persistent issues with portal registration, and portal communication, since the program was initiated,” Allen said.
Mader, at Baker Tilly, notes that the dealer must complete a Form 15400 “Clean Vehicle Seller Report,” which includes the VIN number, Social Security number of the buyer, and other information. That form is essential for claiming the credit.
Check your paperwork before you finalize a deal — and now at tax time.
See the box called “Credit Transfer Election” to find out if the buyer transferred the credit to the dealer at the time of the sale or did not. If you transferred the credit to the dealer to get a better deal on the spot, you don’t qualify for a tax credit when filing a 2024 return.
The EV tax credit rules are complicated — and will not work for everyone. The credits do not apply to every electric vehicle or plug-in hybrid. Buyers must meet set income limits. You can see FuelEconomy.gov to search for eligible vehicles and better understand the rules.
The IRS has a fact sheet online relating to questions about new, previously owned and qualified commercial clean vehicle credits.
The Taxpayer Advocate Service has an alert on “Electric Vehicle Tax Credits: Issues and Pitfalls.” “Taxpayers need to understand and verify both their vehicle’s eligibility and their personal income qualifications before making a purchase,” the report notes.
Currently, the tax credit is available for purchases through Dec. 31, 2032, unless the law changes. Some speculate that President Donald Trump plans to kill the EV consumer tax credit, according to reports by Reuters and elsewhere.
Trump issued an executive order Jan. 20 that talked of eliminating “unfair subsidies and other ill-conceived government-imposed market distortions that favor EVs over other technologies.”
Allen defended the credits, saying, “EV tax credits have helped offset EV affordability challenges and have contributed significantly to deliveries of EVs, which is particularly important in times of high inventory on dealer lots and sluggish demand.
“Any elimination of these credits has to be done over time to help dealers promote and sell the billions of dollars of EV inventory they currently have on their lots that isn’t moving through natural market demand,” Allen said.
As more people file their 2024 tax returns, it’s apparent that mistakes can be made when it comes to claiming the credit on Form 8936 for clean vehicle purchases last year.
Here are potential problems that could cause the IRS to reject your return if you claim a clean vehicle credit:
No tax credit is allowed on your tax return if you leased the EV
Many drivers leased their EVs, thanks to some very attractive lease deals being offered on electric vehicles in 2024. Last year, about 35% of electric vehicles were leased, according to Cox Automotive.
In 2024, some 1.3 million electric vehicles were bought or leased by consumers, according to Cox Automotive. That’s up 7.3% from 2023.
But individual taxpayers cannot claim a clean vehicle tax credit when filing a 2024 federal income tax return if they leased an EV. If you do, tax experts warn, the IRS is likely to reject that return because you’re not qualified to receive the credit.
A loophole in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 gave auto dealers a sweet edge when it came to promoting a more affordable monthly lease payment for new EVs and plug-in hybrids last year. But that doesn’t mean you can claim a tax credit.
Leased electric vehicles are classified as “commercial vehicles,” which means that they’re eligible for the full federal clean vehicle credit without meeting strict battery and sourcing requirements. Any savings would be passed onto the buyer at the discretion of the dealer.
But here’s the rub at tax time: The EV tax credit belongs to the lessor, not the driver who agreed to lease the car or truck. So the individual taxpayer isn’t going to be able to claim a tax credit when filing an income tax return for 2024. The driver should be able to benefit by receiving a lower lease payment.
Making too much means you don’t qualify for an EV credit
One issue that some consumers could face, Mader said, is that they thought they would qualify for a tax credit when buying an EV in 2024 because they expected that their 2024 income would be under the required limit.
But, perhaps, they changed jobs for an eye-popping raise and a bonus to boot last year. Or maybe they sold stock at a profit and that move drove up their adjusted gross income.
To qualify for the EV credit, your modified adjusted gross income may not exceed:
- $300,000 for married couples filing jointly or a surviving spouse
- $225,000 for heads of households
- $150,000 for all other filers
You can use your modified AGI from the year you take delivery of the vehicle or from the previous year, whichever is less. If your modified AGI is below the threshold in one of the two years, you can claim the credit.
If you don’t qualify for the credit because your income was above the limits in both years, you’d need to pay back the credit if you received a benefit when you bought the electric vehicle. You cannot claim the credit on your tax return if your income is too high in both of those years.
Did the dealer make a mistake or run into a glitch?
In some cases where tax returns claiming EV tax credits are rejected, some auto dealers may have failed to adjust for the new reporting requirements that kicked off Jan. 1, 2024, according to Mark Luscombe, principal analyst for Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting in Riverwoods, Illinois.
“The IRS,” Luscombe said, “was even encouraging submission of the time-of-sale report before finalizing the transaction so that the parties could have advance information that the vehicle was approved.”
But in some cases, he said, a dealer might have realized only later that the dealership failed to submit the report. The IRS would then reject the time-of-sale report as being untimely if it was received after the 72-hour window, Luscombe said.
Now, it appears, Luscombe said, that the IRS is working on ways taxpayers and dealers can correct violations of the 72-hour rule, perhaps by letting the taxpayer submit a proof of purchase directly to the IRS. But taxpayers could face some hiccups there and need to clarify if that’s possible with the IRS.
Luscombe said more than 300,000 vehicles were approved for the credit by the IRS. Yet, he said, the overwhelming majority of credits were in the form of rebates and would not qualify to be claimed for a tax break the credit on the tax return.
If you transferred the credit to a dealer to get a reduced sales price, you will still need to file Form 8936 with your tax return.
In 2022, IRS data online indicated that 255,551 tax returns included filing Form 8936 for the qualified plug-in electric drive motor vehicle credit. The IRS doesn’t disclose stats on rejected claims.
As with any new program, Mader said, some issues did crop up with that new IRS online portal initially in 2024.
Dealers struggled, he said, and faced some confusion with using the portal, which sometimes didn’t work like the government said it would initially. Mader said his group worked with the National Automobile Dealers Association to try to resolve some issues early on behalf of their dealers.
“The IRS did some extensions for a while to allow dealers more time because the portal wasn’t working,” Mader said.
“But a dealer also had to sign up for the program and not every dealer in the country signed up for the program.”
Allen said the NADA has strongly encouraged franchised dealers to sign up for the portal.
Bob Moczulewski, tax director with Baker Tilly’s federal tax credits and incentives practice, said the IRS portal system is one way to try to prevent people from trying to make fraudulent claims about EV transactions.
Yet, Moczulewski said there are always glitches to overcome “with these portal systems, whether it’s the IRS or some other independent parties.”
And information, he said, is relayed back to the IRS about these sorts of glitches.
For the buyer to obtain the tax credit, the dealer is required to provide the buyer with a copy of the time-of-sale report.
Auto dealers must register online, according to the IRS, and report the same information to the buyer and the IRS. “If they don’t, your vehicle won’t be eligible for the credit,” according to the IRS.
If the dealer did not properly submit the paperwork on time, taxpayers could discover that the IRS will reject their claims for an EV tax rebate. Much could depend on if the IRS will allow a retroactive submission at some point as glitches are worked out.
A consumer in New Mexico, for example, said the IRS rejected her 2024 return when claiming the EV credit after buying a plug-in electric minivan, according to a “Morning Edition” report on NPR. Her dealer, according to the report, acknowledged that a mistake was made.
All electric vehicles don’t qualify for a credit
Sometimes, buyers don’t pay attention to all the details, such as whether their specific EV model would qualify for a tax credit.
The availability of the credit will depend on several factors, including the manufacturer’s suggested retail price for the vehicle, whether the final assembly was in North America as required, and if the EV meets the sourcing requirements for critical mineral and battery components.
The IRS has two maximum limits listed for the manufacturer’s suggested retail price for a certain vehicle to qualify for the tax credit. It’s up to $80,000 for vans, sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks. And it’s up to $55,000 for other vehicles.
If your clean vehicle isn’t on the approved list, you don’t qualify for the credit.
Right now, it’s too early in the tax season for tax professionals to get a handle on how many EV tax credits are being rejected by the IRS.
A big percentage probably have not been rejected, Mader said, but there are many reasons why these returns could be rejected. He said his firm has not seen any rejections yet.
Alison Flores, manager at the Tax Institute at H&R Block, said her firm has already seen more EV credits rejected than might be expected.
The 2023 returns filed last year, she said, were somewhat simpler. Taxpayers didn’t face the issue of getting the right paperwork in hand to show that they either got the benefits of the credit at the time of purchase or that they still could claim the credit. That nuance cropped up in 2024.
Correct paperwork needs to be in hand if you’re claiming a credit now because you didn’t get a rebate as part of the sale.
Earlier, Flores said, “dealers weren’t under as strict a time frame to submit verification of a sale to the IRS as they are now.”
Yet there are — and continue to be — issues with entering in a VIN wrong or a dealer forgetting to submit a report that resulted in an IRS rejection of the return, Flores said.
Taxpayers need to make sure that they’re using the correct VIN. Are there any mistakes on the paperwork? You can find that long vehicle identification number on your title or the driver’s side dashboard under the windshield.
Taxpayers who are entitled to the clean vehicle credit should claim the credit, but they also need to make sure that they truly do qualify.
Going forward, it can help EV buyers in 2025 to take a few extra steps to avoid tax headaches next year.
“Taxpayers might want to verify that the dealer is submitting the new time-of-sale report, which can be submitted even before the purchase is finalized,” Luscombe said.
Shoppers want to do their own research about the tax credits, know the income limits and EVs that qualify for the credit. Confirm whether the dealership is participating in the IRS point-of-sale EV tax credit program.
“For consumers who are purchasing an EV, it’s important to advocate for yourself at the point of sale to avoid tax surprises later,” said Flores, of H&R Block.
Make sure you receive copies, she said, of Form 15400 “Clean Vehicle Seller Report.”
“If the dealership cannot provide clear answers or written confirmation, consider consulting a tax professional before finalizing the purchase to avoid issues when claiming the credit later,” Flores said.
“Specifically, ask how they process the tax credit and what steps they take to ensure the necessary IRS paperwork is filed correctly and timely.”
Contact personal finance columnist Susan Tompor: stompor@freepress.com. Follow her on X @tompor.