[iamchemist]

Is it true, that when you lease a Bolt or Volt, the tax credit (which now stands at $3,750) goes to the leasing company, which in this case is a part of GM, and the customer never sees it at all? If that;s true then the Federal Law, which established that credit to encourage electric car purchases, is a TOTAL FAILURE. The customer gets no benefit from the Tax Credit at all!

 

[Steverino]

Is it true, that when you lease a Bolt or Volt, the tax credit (which now stands at $3,750) goes to the leasing company, which in this case is a part of GM, and the customer never sees it at all? If that;s true then the Federal Law, which established that credit to encourage electric car purchases, is a TOTAL FAILURE. The customer gets no benefit from the Tax Credit at all!

The tax credit goes to the buyer, not a renter. The lease company bought the car, you are renting it from them. If you want the tax credit then buy the car rather than lease it.

 

[saghost]

Is it true, that when you lease a Bolt or Volt, the tax credit (which now stands at $3,750) goes to the leasing company, which in this case is a part of GM, and the customer never sees it at all? If that;s true then the Federal Law, which established that credit to encourage electric car purchases, is a TOTAL FAILURE. The customer gets no benefit from the Tax Credit at all!

The leasing company offers the car at a lower lease rate because they received the tax credit, thus passing the savings on to the consumer.

In some cases, they do that by adding the tax credit on to the residual, lowering payments but creating a completely unrealistic end of lease price. Early Volt leases were famous for this. Others apply it directly to the purchase price.

 

[obermd]

Is it true, that when you lease a Bolt or Volt, the tax credit (which now stands at $3,750) goes to the leasing company, which in this case is a part of GM, and the customer never sees it at all? If that;s true then the Federal Law, which established that credit to encourage electric car purchases, is a TOTAL FAILURE. The customer gets no benefit from the Tax Credit at all!

Yet another reason to not lease. It's the lease that's the TOTAL FAILURE, not the tax credit policy.

 

[iamchemist]

Walter, thank you very much for your reply! Of the replies I received, yours is the only one that makes sense.

All the other replies tell me that the tax credit ONLY goes to the buyer. They forget that in order to get a $3,750 tax credit one must pay at least $3,750 in Federal Taxes in one year. I am retired and I do not pay that much in Federal Taxes. For many years the lease approach to buying EV's has been the standard way around this problem.

I have used that approach in the past and I know dozens of others, who have also leased EV's for the same reason.

The fact that many GM salespeople don't know that says a great deal about how much they know about electric cars.

 

[Don M]

Is it true, that when you lease a Bolt or Volt, the tax credit (which now stands at $3,750) goes to the leasing company, which in this case is a part of GM, and the customer never sees it at all? If that;s true then the Federal Law, which established that credit to encourage electric car purchases, is a TOTAL FAILURE. The customer gets no benefit from the Tax Credit at all!

As others have noted, the tax credit goes to buyers not 'customers' - It's the intent of the law and you can read exactly what they had in mind

But, 'customers' do have a way of benefiting from the credit too - It's called 'Leasing'. Many of the people who lease vehicles do so because they can't afford to buy the vehicle they want to drive - Many of them pay very little or no income tax, so even if they could afford to buy the car, they sill would get very little or no tax credit. But . . . . they can lease and the owner of the car who took the tax credit will pass along much of the savings the 'customer' wouldn't have qualified for anyway on to them

In short, the tax credit is a win-win for most everyone, one way or another

Don

 

[Mike-o-Matic]

I leased a 2012 for three years, and yes, the bank that owned the car and leased it to me, got the credit (not me directly). However, they applied lease payment reduction to compensate me for that. I think it was categorized as a CCR (Capital Cost Reduction). I'd have to dig for paperwork to get this exactly right, but as I recall, it amounted to about 42% of the overall value of the tax credit ($7,500 at the time).

In other words: Yes, the bank got the credit, not me. But it was used to reduce the cost of my lease payments substantially, thereby benefiting me, the lessee. The car was going to certainly going to last longer than the 36,000 mile lease, hence, they pro-rated the discount to correspond appropriately.

 

[obermd]

I leased a 2012 for three years, and yes, the bank that owned the car and leased it to me, got the credit (not me directly). However, they applied lease payment reduction to compensate me for that. I think it was categorized as a CCR (Capital Cost Reduction). I'd have to dig for paperwork to get this exactly right, but as I recall, it amounted to about 42% of the overall value of the tax credit ($7,500 at the time).

In other words: Yes, the bank got the credit, not me. But it was used to reduce the cost of my lease payments substantially, thereby benefiting me, the lessee. The car was going to certainly going to last longer than the 36,000 mile lease, hence, they pro-rated the discount to correspond appropriately.

Based on the numbers in this post, the bank pocketed $4,350 of the tax credit that you would have gotten had your total taxes for that year been over the $7,500 maximum credit amount.

 

[FI Spyder]

In Canada we don't get tax credits, we get rebates (applied to purchase price) both provincial (where available) and federal. That way it is available to all, both rich and poor. In Canada every one is created equal.