AMT: No Home Charging Station Tax Credit for You

December 31, 2013 was the last day to to install a home electric vehicle charging station in time to claim the "Alternative Fuel Vehicle Refueling Property Credit". This tax credit was worth the smaller of 30% of the cost or $1,000 - labor and materials were included.

I bought and installed a Level 2 charging station in December, earlier than I would have otherwise planned, so I could use this credit. I figured it would be more than a year before prices would drop enough on their own to equal the value of this credit.

Today I started working on TurboTax, so was wondering why the software wouldn't give me this credit. Then I went back and did some reading on other sites and found that those who were hit with the Alternative Minimum Tax were not eligible.

Not complaining that I'm fortunate enough to confront this bracket, but it's a little strange because the electric/plug-in vehicle credit is not subject to the AMT and the AMT is going to catch up with almost everyone soon enough.

 

I think that is a typo in one of the help sections. Another help section correctly identifies that the service year is 2013. However, I did find in this latter help section: "if you pay alternative minimum tax (AMT) you will not be able to claim this credit".