Congress Proposes Repeal of $7,500 EV Tax Credit

The US is a Constitutional Republic so we do in fact have a say on how our government runs, what it can and cant do and how it spends our money.
Looks like we have a comedian.

one down, hundreds to go. Please keep going and dump the ethanol mandate, the wind credits, the Jones act, solar panel tariffs, sugar price supports and 2nd million dollar house mortgage deduction for a good start.
Sounds good to me, except for the "start" part. How about fossil fuels first? That should free up at least $400 billion a year. Renewables would be AFTER, those are only more like 65 billion.
 
Personally I think every tax exception and deduction should be eliminated. Everyone should pay the same rate whether you make 10k or 100K or 1000K. Why should anyone pay more than their fare share? Rate percentage should fluctuate year to year depending on spending. Gov spends less, more money back in citizens pockets. Gov spends more, less money to citizen and more likely politician voted out. Although you you probably have to make a Constitutional Amendment stating citizens will never have to pay more than XX% of income in taxes. Also just an FYI, there is no law that bars you from paying more in taxes than you owe. You can always send a check to the IRS because you feel like you've been taxed to little (no one ever does. My brother works for department of Treasury and it never happens according to him. People like their money)

Well we have the highest effective corporate tax rate in the world.

That said some tax breaks are to incentivise good behaviors. 501k, Roth, 529, hsa, FSA, donations to charity etc.

Electric vehicles are supposed to remove our energy dependence and green house gas issues. But I'm not in favor of incentives that unfairly balance the tables with competing industry. And I'm not in favor of incentivise the rich. This from someone with a decent income.
 
They might as well just come out and say "We're going to repeal every fucking thing that has ever made America a decent place to live (until recently): no tax credits or deductions for anything, you pay what the IRS says you pay and that's that."

That's where they're headed so, why dick around, just get the fuck on with it.
Subsidizing businesses makes America great? I'd rather not pay for Elon Musk to get richer, thanks;

BTW, this will be the final nail in Tesla's coffin, but it was due to happen anyway as they were expected to hit their limit early 2018.
 
Subsidizing businesses makes America great? I'd rather not pay for Elon Musk to get richer, thanks;

BTW, this will be the final nail in Tesla's coffin, but it was due to happen anyway as they were expected to hit their limit early 2018.
It will take more than that to bring down Tesla. The investors have so much money tied up in Tesla they won't go down without a fight.

It's absurd how much valuation they have.
 
Btw this will not harm tesla.. if anything buy stock now ! .. nobody else has a gigafactory, the other automakers are screwed.
The other manufacturers are using batteries from the largest battery maker in the USA. That makes the giga factory look small.
 
It will take more than that to bring down Tesla. The investors have so much money tied up in Tesla they won't go down without a fight.

It's absurd how much valuation they have.
Tesla is broke in 1-2 quarters and won't have the debt markets open to them, which means their only option is a sizable equity offering. This will not sit well with current investors and the share price will probably get crushed.
 
Why are we subsidizing $100k+ earners anyways. The first couple of years, the median income of people who took the EV credit was $175k. I read the other day that its now down to about $120k. Again, we are we subsidizing six figure incomes with a $7500 tax credit.

I've already read 2 stories about how these tax cuts are bad for the middle class in high tax states like California who will actually pay more.
One of the stories then went on with an example of a couple earning $500,000 a year and how they would be paying several thousand more in taxes.
$500,000 a year income puts this theoretical couple in the top 5%. That's the very definition of rich, and way beyond middle class even for California.

The other story had an example of a family with $250,000 in income.
Again, that's still the top 10%, and is not middle class.

I live in California, and my income is lower than the average for where I live, but still into the middle of the middle class.
Based on the information released, I would see my federal taxes decrease to about half what I'm currently paying, with no need to itemize just to save a few hundred.
 
You mean the one where middle class taxpayers subsidized $120,000 Tesla’s for the super rich who would have bought them anyway? That was always my beef with it. Qualifying cars should have been capped. I think some jurisdictions had a cap which made sense, but luxury cars never should have qualified.
 
Tesla is broke in 1-2 quarters and won't have the debt markets open to them, which means their only option is a sizable equity offering. This will not sit well with current investors and the share price will probably get crushed.

Clearly you haven’t followed Tesla stock. I’ve seen it get a ticker tape parade more than once after a share dilution. Tesla investors are not your average breed, that’s why it’s worth more than GM according to the market.
 
My dad's a disabled veteran who bought a Chevy Volt to escape from the costs of his v8 pickup.

The tax incentive only applies to the year it is put into service.

It only cancels out federal tax owed and does not come back as a rebate.

It applies mostly to external plug in cars..ie volt.

You cannot get the credit again.

Most people buying them are lower or middle class and don't fully utilize the credit entirely because they don't owe that much.

When I graduate from my graduate program I will likely buy one to offset my first years federal tax and get my junk car off the road.

My old car leaks, smokes, and burns fuel poorly.

The people saying it's their money is bunk. I have paid into taxes too and if the government wants to help me get out of my car and into a efficient vehicle then its my right as a tax payer.
 
Gotta love this board, whenever anything even remotely "green" (and yes I'll concede EV cars are debatable as green), seems everyone is a expert on everything from how taxes work to how a companies bottom line will be.

Now this is going to get messy.
Why should the government subsidise a tesla model x, or any fancy toy of any kind. Should there be a tax break on a chevy volt? maybe, a electric super car, hell no.
Why would there be a tax break on the Chevy Volt? (maybe you mean Bolt? The Volt is a hybrid similar to the Prius). Either way if you're going to give a tax break for having an electric car why should it matter what car that is?

Personally I don't care to pay for someone else's EV. Remember this isn't the government's money, it's our money.
Hint, you aren't. The taxes you pay to the government is not based on the number of subsidies there are out there. Your taxes will not go down when/if this subsidy is repealed. Congress will continue to overspend whether it's a subsidy today, or some earmark bill for a toy wooden bow & arrow production plant in Fuckitall Kansas.

Unless you have 10+ kw solar set up and a Power wall. The charging you do every night on the EV vehicle is just as bad for the environment as your neighbor with a gasoline car.
I believe there was an article to basically to the effect, that this is in fact not true. Power plants have much higher efficiency ratings at converting fossil fuels into usable energy, hence pollute less per Joule of energy made than a gas powered auto.

From your own source:
So called Green energy uses up almost 75% of the energy subsides.
How about the unlisted subsides? Like how many billions (trillions?) have we spent projecting our military presence in order to try to keep stable the source of said fossil fuels? Do you think we would give two fucks about what happens in the Middle East unless we got something from them. And here's the kicker, we don't get that much oil from that region anyways! So we are effectively paying for military presence of the oil companies to sell oil/fuel to other countries, some not even US companies!


Personally I think every tax exception and deduction should be eliminated. Everyone should pay the same rate whether you make 10k or 100K or 1000K. Why should anyone pay more than their fare share?
Because long ago we figured that having those of greater means supporting those of lesser is ultimately better for our country. Otherwise more of a persons ability to live gets taken away, this is the whole idea behind the standardized deduction, although it works very poorly considering the cost of living from region to region in the country. I think the average person pays about $9k a year, that's IRS income divided by number of tax payers, someone making $10k a year should only keep $1k because it's fair? Hey welcome to india

um.... The government does not have money, they take money as taxes from the citizens. So if you are a tax payer it is in fact your money. The US is a Constitutional Republic so we do in fact have a say on how our government runs, what it can and cant do and how it spends our money.
And way pray tell did you last have a say in how "your money" is spent if you ignore who you vote into congress? At the federal level we vote for representatives who we hope will keep fight for our interests, but we in no way have the ability to decide where and how money spent, and honestly thank fucking god for that.
 
Good kill the credit. If EV manufacturers want to compete, they can build their cars at a competitive price.

I'd love for you to see what happens if you universally applied your (bad) logic to every industry on earth. the US is actually one of the less dickish countries that will engage in price protections/tarrifs/etc in terms of protecting a new growing industry. Know why everything is cheaply produced in china? Humans are practically disposable over there in the ever present quest for "competitive prices" if we take your logic to heart every industry that can get away with it would have their products/people being done for ass cheap overseas where health/safety don't mean shit.

The US has an an addiction to oil for quite some time and the very nature of our energy industry means that any changes good or bad take years or even decades to realize. Fostering the EV business is a way to hedge your bets against the next energy crunch, when the world wakes up and sees oil supplies running low, a refinery gets knocked offline, OPEC gets a hair up it's ass and decides to rape the world market, or whatever, you can't just snap your fingers and have alternative energy solutions go into effect.

Funny enough -- you mention EV makers wanting to compete, they absolutely do but look at what the dealership lobby has done to laws on the books about then being able to sell their product. Imagine you have a widget that people want to buy, but me and a bunch of buddies from Classic widget conglomerate throw a ton of money to judges and politicians to make it illegal for you to sell something a lot of people want just because it's "different" and a far more efficient way of doing business. Is that fair competition?

Unrelated to your post -- I think it's extra funny that people get bent out of shape over tax breaks that are designed to help move the US into the 21st century with renewable energy cars, and clean power generation/storage, but are more than happy to give billions in tax breaks to sports/stadiums franchises just so local sports team will build X or Y in a specific location.

Purchased a 2017 Volt last year, and its absolutely amazing being able to drive 1500+ miles and only use 8 gallons of gas due to charging at night which allows me to do the bulk of my miles on super cheap/clean electricity. (100% renwables contract here in TX) I'd wager most of the people bitching have zero idea of HOW the tax credit actually works, govt doesn't just cut you a blind 7500 check, your benefit is only the max tax liability in that particular year of purchase. I'd also be willing to wager most people bitching in this thread have no idea just how many industries or sectors are subsidized with tax dollars, incentives, or breaks to achieve the desired conditions for citizens.

Funny enough tax credit or not, it won't deter me from picking up a Model 3 hopefully around 2019 once initial demand has been satisfied, the world of EV driving seriously kicks that much ass
 
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I think it will happen organically just like when we moved as a society from horse and buggy to Gas Cars. At first there was no infrastructure and overall a horse and buggy was much better for most people/tasks. But as things slowly evolved and the demand grew so did production technology's and that made them more affordable.

I think the same will happen to EV vehicles but it's just not going to happen overnight.

In modern society governments get heavily involved in the industry. Once an industry is setup it can generate a lot of good. Think about Detroit and ford and how that made it a world class city and had massive benefits for almost 100 years. If you don't do these sorts of things then another country like China will and you will be buying all your electric vehicles from them, all the good paying jobs will be over there, etc.....

Why are we subsidizing $100k+ earners anyways. The first couple of years, the median income of people who took the EV credit was $175k. I read the other day that its now down to about $120k. Again, we are we subsidizing six figure incomes with a $7500 tax credit.

If that is where the industry started then its the way it is. So far it looks like the plan is roughly working out. Tesla stared with ultra high end and now they are tying to get down to a more normal price with the model 3. Other automakers are also making electric vehicles.

Electric vehicles will help create competition to stabilize gas prices as well. If gas producers know that people always have the option of purchasing viable electric cars it keeps some competition and helps hedge against things like OPEC controlling production.
 
Why should the government subsidise a tesla model x, or any fancy toy of any kind. Should there be a tax break on a chevy volt? maybe, a electric super car, hell no.

I agree there should not be subsidies in general for any industry, farming included. If the government wants to help out a particular demographic there are more effective ways of doing it than subsidies. However, ending the EV subsidy now isn't going to hurt Tesla one bit, they are already just about maxed out on the subsidies available to them. I think only the first 500,000 cars a manufacturer sells are eligible and Tesla will be hitting that any day now.
 
You folks gotta learn to read with comprehension, seriously, but I suppose the fault lies with me for not tossing a smiley at the end of the sentence I suppose.

Hmmm. Parsing that out, "seriously" modifies the style with which "You folks" need to learn to read. Since you meant the original comment sarcastically, but it was taken seriously, your comment I just quoted is deliciously ironic. ;)
 
Sounds good to me, except for the "start" part. How about fossil fuels first? That should free up at least $400 billion a year. Renewables would be AFTER, those are only more like 65 billion.

Let's compromise and do them all at the same time. Congress has a horrible problem with doing stuff they say they will do 'later'.
 
Really? ( No /s)

Yes actually. One company controls north of 95% of the car battery business in the USA.

All those brands you see in the store optima, die hard, motor craft, are made by one company. And they are the big player for lithium car battery packs as well.
 
Let's compromise and do them all at the same time. Congress has a horrible problem with doing stuff they say they will do 'later'.
Sure, I'm against subsidies in general. If the government wants to actually help it can do it directly. God forbid those hundreds of billions go to something like a jobs program instead.
 
I've already read 2 stories about how these tax cuts are bad for the middle class in high tax states like California who will actually pay more.
One of the stories then went on with an example of a couple earning $500,000 a year and how they would be paying several thousand more in taxes.
$500,000 a year income puts this theoretical couple in the top 5%. That's the very definition of rich, and way beyond middle class even for California.

The other story had an example of a family with $250,000 in income.
Again, that's still the top 10%, and is not middle class.

I live in California, and my income is lower than the average for where I live, but still into the middle of the middle class.
Based on the information released, I would see my federal taxes decrease to about half what I'm currently paying, with no need to itemize just to save a few hundred.

Yeah someone was bitching to me he can't afford the extra $1,400 per year on a $600,000 note. I told him I'm not weeping for him. He got pissed. Lol

I think the top 5% is in the $250k/year area last I checked.
 
Taxes should never be used to influence behavior.
But most taxes ending up doing that even if not intended because they change the economics of decisions. Often the unintended consequences are greater than the thing being "fixed."

The taxes that don't alter behavior much are usually on vices like alcohol, cigarettes, etc.

And why the he11 don't we do away with ethanol in gasoline (and all the related subsidies), it harms the environment and reduces fuel efficiency -- even Greenpeace agrees with that one and has for more than 10 years.
 
I fail to see the problem with this so long as they also consider removing the rest of the subsidies as well for other energy sources. Combine that with heavier taxing of "Fuel hog" type vehicles and let the market sort itself out.
 
OPEC doesn't control the market. Now that we can produce in North America, and they know it, the price is kept low and they are the ones using their production to help do that. If they make serious cuts in production and push the price up to a certain point then we can bring ours back up to meet that demand.

This isn't the 1970s any more and the only way these EV can compete against cheap gasoline is with artificial market manipulation. Leastways that is the situation atm.

How long can the oil supply last is anyone's guess or in the case of a geologist educated guess. They've already been wrong about that more than once.
 
OPEC doesn't control the market. Now that we can produce in North America, and they know it, the price is kept low and they are the ones using their production to help do that. If they make serious cuts in production and push the price up to a certain point then we can bring ours back up to meet that demand.

This isn't the 1970s any more and the only way these EV can compete against cheap gasoline is with artificial market manipulation. Leastways that is the situation atm.

How long can the oil supply last is anyone's guess or in the case of a geologist educated guess. They've already been wrong about that more than once.

OPEC has made is clear they see Shale Natural Gas as a threat and are willing to sell at a loss for a very long time to see all those companies go under. This one always had my head scratching. Sure you can use natural gas to make similar petro distillates, or fuel for power plants. But when it comes to gasoline and other petro distillates (fertilizer, home heating oil, plastics, diesel, lubricants, etc), isn't oil still king over natural gas? It's not like everyone is going to insta switch over to natural gas heating, natural gas power plants, and natural gas cars.

I don't understand that side of the petro chemical supply equation to justify why OPEC is so afraid of shale gas.
 
So you approve of tax cuts for the rich? That's mainly what the electric car tax break is.

The only people at the office with electric cars are some of the higher paid engineers. They could afford to buy almost any car they want.
Meanwhile, none of the lower paid office staff have electric cars. They couldn't could afford an electric car, even with the tax breaks.
This filters down to "normal" car buyers however when they buy that 4 year old leaf with 23k on it for 9k..
 
This filters down to "normal" car buyers however when they buy that 4 year old leaf with 23k on it for 9k..

Ummm NO

The refund only applies to first owner as a one time tax incentive. Now if you only owed $5000 in taxes, you paid $2500 in taxes, and got a $7500 rebate, you would get $5000 back from the government at the end of the year. But a large portion of that would go to paying the state sales tax on the car. On a $100,000 car that's like $5,000 to $7,000. (5% -> 7% sales tax)

When the Volt first came out, dealers were buying them as first buyers to put the tax rebate in their pocket, and then sold them to unwitting consumers as low mileage dealer cars (AKA used) for close to MSRP. People were stupid enough to fall for it not realizing they weren't going to get the tax break.

Serves the dealers right that they couldn't dump the first gen Volt even with large incentives. GM lost a ton of money on the first gen. (And rightfully so, it was awful feature/cost spec wise for the vast vast majority of owners)

BTW: The Leaf's batteries sucked.
 
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Congress should do away with ALL oil and energy subsidies except for nuclear, imo. It's the only energy source that can feed the current demand while having enough capacity to meet the growing demand while more and more EVs are put into service, and do it with zero CO2 emissions.
 
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Ummm NO

The refund only applies to first owner as a one time tax incentive. Now if you only owed $5000 in taxes, you paid $2500 in taxes, and got a $7500 rebate, you would get $5000 back from the government at the end of the year. But a large portion of that would go to paying the state sales tax on the car. On a $100,000 car that's like $5,000 to $7,000. (5% -> 7% sales tax)

When the Volt first came out, dealers were buying them as first buyers to put the tax rebate in their pocket, and then sold them to unwitting consumers as low mileage dealer cars (AKA used) for close to MSRP. People were stupid enough to fall for it not realizing they weren't going to get the tax break.

Serves the dealers right that they couldn't dump the first gen Volt even with large incentives. GM lost a ton of money on the first gen. (And rightfully so, it was awful feature/cost spec wise for the vast vast majority of owners)

BTW: The Leaf's batteries sucked.
You missed the point entirely:

7500 credit = more evs. More evs = lower cost used. The Rich eat the huge depreciation (of way more than 7500) and provide us normal folks with a cheap, gasoline-less 2nd car :)
 
Personal vehicles only use 8% of our energy.

We'd be way better off using the money elsewhere.
 
Yes actually. One company controls north of 95% of the car battery business in the USA.

All those brands you see in the store optima, die hard, motor craft, are made by one company. And they are the big player for lithium car battery packs as well.
Ah ok, those batteries hehe.
 
OPEC has made is clear they see Shale Natural Gas as a threat and are willing to sell at a loss for a very long time to see all those companies go under.
Yet when we found out Chinese manufacturers were selling at a loss specifically to kill innovation in cheaper solar in the US, IIRC they did end help kill a few technologies in the long run, companies who were aiming for the goal of $1/watt. We put a special tariff on those companies products IIRC and that's it though. I can't imagine we'd do anything like that with oil.


This one always had my head scratching. Sure you can use natural gas to make similar petro distillates, or fuel for power plants. But when it comes to gasoline and other petro distillates (fertilizer, home heating oil, plastics, diesel, lubricants, etc), isn't oil still king over natural gas? It's not like everyone is going to insta switch over to natural gas heating, natural gas power plants, and natural gas cars.
well oil is for the manufactured goods side of things to be certain, can't make plastics out of natural gas. Natural gas is simply a "byproduct" of oil formations, and just happens to be very useful as a fuel. Out here we have a network of natural gas pipes, and they end up bringing fuel to us where as heating oil needs to be delivered. Gas still has a higher energy density than natural gas (under current storage methods), however NG is cleaner burning than gasoline. I don't think anyone is saying get away from oil base products in general, that'd be suicide even if we did have the energy infrastructure to handle it.

I don't understand that side of the petro chemical supply equation to justify why OPEC is so afraid of shale gas.
OPEC doesn't own it, OPEC can't force the world to bend to their will, that's why they are afraid of it. So they currently try to bankrupt those companies, then they'll swoop in and buy up the pieces when all is said and done, a tactic that is otherwise illegal in the US (not sure what Canada laws are)
 
What do these jackasses care? They'll be dead by the time the coastal areas are a few stories underwater. Fuck our kids and grandkids. Let's just turn this country into a big smog, garbage and toxic waste dump until the polar ice caps melt and flood all of it anyway. All that matters is tax breaks for the rich.
 
one down, hundreds to go. Please keep going and dump the ethanol mandate, the wind credits, the Jones act, solar panel tariffs, sugar price supports and 2nd million dollar house mortgage deduction for a good start.
I'm good with all of that except the 2nd house mortgage deduction.
 
You missed the point entirely:

7500 credit = more evs. More evs = lower cost used. The Rich eat the huge depreciation (of way more than 7500) and provide us normal folks with a cheap, gasoline-less 2nd car :)
And you people with your fucking gas-less vehicles are nearly the entire reason why the roads suck, well and more fuel efficient vehicles. What we need is to get back to mpg standards of 20 for cars and 10 to 12 for trucks and SUVs . by simply doing that, we will use more fuel and thus increase the amount of fuel tax money for road improvements.
 
I don't see that many Tesla's. I do see a lot of Toyota Prius's, Nissan Leaf's and starting to see Chevy Bolt's. These are $30K or less (I've heard the Leaf is considerably less than $30K).

So I'm not sure this is a rich mans rebate.

The reason "normal" people don't buy them is because there are a lot of practical issues with electric vehicles like range and size. Which means they are not competitive products, which begs the question why are we making them competitive by making the price artificially low?
 
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