In my last post, I shared how I chose an electric vehicle to purchase. If you haven’t already, be sure to check out my post Part 1 – Choosing an Electric Vehicle. In this post, I will share a bit about buying an electric vehicle and the tax credits that I received.
It should be noted that this post was written in May 2023. Many things change quickly in the electric car market (and with tax credits), so I share this with you as a disclaimer.
Once I decided on the Kiro Niro, we knew we needed to test-drive one at a dealership. Once I was behind the wheel and about a mile down the road, my main first impression was, “Wow! This thing is zippy!” When I pressed the accelerator, the car moved – fast. There was no lag while you wait for internal combustion to take place. Another thing we noticed was how quiet the vehicle was. Eric and I couldn’t get over the spaceship noises of the vehicle, as we like to call them. We returned to the dealership confident that this was a good decision. Even though we were pretty confident in our decision to move forward in buying, the dealership was very busy. After waiting for over an our, we realized were just weren’t going to get waited on by anyone. We left that dealership. I took a few days to continue to research and check dealerships in other nearby cities. I eventually found another Kia Niro in the color I wanted and immediately called to book an appointment.
My mom went with me to this dealership, which is about an hour’s drive away. We arrived at the dealership, I pointed to the car I wanted, and asked to immediately start the paperwork. No tire kicking here. No haggling on their end. I purposefully showed up on a Friday afternoon, so the employees were eager to quickly get me processed and out the door. I used the money from my Carvana trade in to pay for some of it and used Kia Finance for the rest. Within no time, we were on our way with a new car. It was a lovely ride home in my new spaceship.
Don’t forget your credits and rebates!
After purchasing, I printed the tax form to be able to file my request for the credit as soon as I could in the next tax year. I had that sitting with my annual tax documents in a folder that I add to throughout the year. I have a professional service complete my taxes so I gave them the form that I had partially filled out, and they did the filing with my other tax docuemtns. I was able to get the federal tax credit, which was approximately $7,500 for me. There are a lot of factors that determine that amount, so I can’t guarantee if you would qualify and what your amount would be. This should be considered in your initial research when deciding which EV to purchase.
I also filed for a state tax rebate. At the time, Pennsylvania’s tax rebate was called the Alternative Fuel Rebate. I highly suggest you do your research on credits and rebates that might be available. These are always changing and differ from state-to-state. Even just a year and half after I got my rebate from PA, the income levels for eligibility changed. Another note is that rebates are considered taxable. I filed that I received this money, and it was treated like additional income. I was very grateful for these incentives. The money I received went directly onto the loan I had taken out on the vehicle.
My goal with this post was to share a bit about buying an electric vehicle and the follow up that was needed to receive related tax credits or rebates. In future posts, I will share how I got set up for at-home charging and my overall feelings about the car now that I’ve owned it for about a year and a half.
Do you have questions about owning electric vehicles? I’m compiling a FAQs page and would love to know what questions you have. Send them to me at mschills@greenerliving.eco or share them below.