2006 Tax Credit

[uclabruins]

I'm glad to see many people get the full credit. Sorry to those who were hit by the AMT.

[cobra94563]

lost ALL to AMT.

just checked the numbers for "married filing separately" - I can get the full credit on one filing... but we end up paying more combined.

(Filing separately may help others through.)

[LKJR]

Bought our car in May 2006 but getting a big "0" back due to AMT....

....would have bought the car even without the incentive....we love our Prius!!!!

[harper42]

I was pleasantly surprised. Ours was the first Prius refund our tax consultant had done... but she kept totalling things up and finally said "That's it! You get the full amount!!" That was great news. And we also got additional refund!

[fshagan]

I got the full $3,150 back (purchased on 1/26/2006, after waiting 4 months so we could qualify for the tax credit). We paid sticker price of 24,044 for our Package 3, so our net cost is $20,894. That did make buying the Prius economical over the life of the car verses the $17 - $18,000 cars we were looking at (Matrix, Corolla, Camry and HHR).

[TheAnnoyingOne]

Got the whole credit , no AMT although I ended up paying a thousand or so because of IRA distributions without enough tax withholdings.

[Henry V]

What a total bait and switch. We received a big ZERO $$ tax credit on our Feb. 2006 Prius.

We are not subject to the AMT, but our "net regular tax" (line 15) is lower than our "tentative minimum tax" (line 16), so like many others we get no tax break.

We may not have bought the car if we had known this. Other than the terrible seats and stereo the car is just fine but we would have bought a much more comfortable and fun to drive diesel if we had known.

This flaw in getting a credit was not in any of the materials I read prior to buying this car.

Senators and representatives need to know about this. I hope others are contacting them.

[JimN]

Henry, Welcome to the site. I'm sorry to hear you are not happy with the car. Hopefully it will grow on you.

[Henry V]

Jim,

As I said the car is fine overall. My wife put 36K on it in 12 months without any issues. We get 39mpg in the winter and 49mpg in the summer driving like a normal car. You can fit three kids in the back seat. All great things, but as many others have said here, the seats and sound system are terrible compared to the technical level of the car.

One consideration when purchasing the car for $24K+ was expectation of the $3K+ rebate. It just sucks to lose the expected $3,150. All the talk of a true "credit" was bs as far as I am concerned.

[sub3marathonman]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Henry V @ Apr 17 2007, 12:03 PM) [snapback]424618[/snapback]</div>

You can fit three kids in the back seat.

One consideration when purchasing the car for $24K+ was expectation of the $3K+ rebate. It just sucks to lose the expected $3,150. All the talk of a true "credit" was bs as far as I am concerned.
[/b]

And, unless I'm wrong, if those three kids in the bck seat are yours you lost the $3150 right off the bat. We were also ripped off for the $3150 supposed credit, and that was with two kids and the ridiculous AMT calculation of the Tentative Minimum Tax when we didn't even owe it.

We even tried Jim's helpful suggestion of married filing separately, but that turned out no better.

It is a scam, and the funny thing is that people are going to start finding out about it when the hybrid credits are for American automakers (who the government is trying to help) and skip the purchase, while Toyota (who the government is trying to punish for being successful) snagged all the unsuspecting Americans.