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Comment by Cshelton | Hacker News Reader

Also it is a tax credit.. meaning you only get the $7,500 if you actually owe at least $7,5000.. AFTER the standard deduction. Basically, anyone with under ~$100k annual income would not even receive the whole credit, if any at all.

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"Tax credits are subtracted not from taxable income, but directly from a person’s tax liability; they therefore reduce taxes dollar for dollar. As a result, credits have the same value for everyone who can claim their full value."

http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/whats-differenc...

Right, they are talking about the situation where someone only owes $6,000 in taxes. They get a $6,000 tax credit.

So setting aside whether this is fair or unfair, people that owe more taxes clearly get a bigger benefit from the credit.

The poor don't have taxable income. You can only claim the credit if you itemize which is restricted to even higher tax brackets.

No need to itemize, it is reported on line 54 and offsets line 44:

https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040.pdf

But lots of people don't end up paying $7500 in income taxes.

It's actually close to $50k before you owe that much after standard deduction... $100k would be closer to $18k taxes.

Also, you don't need to take it all one year. Tax credits carry forward up to 10 years.[1]

[1] Disclaimer, I am not an accountant

You get 100% of this credit passed on to you (cut right out of your negotiated amount) if you lease for 36mo. That's they way to get inexpensive electrics - lease and then keep it if you want it after 3 years.

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