Form 8936 Qualified Plug-In Electric Drive Motor Vehicle Credit

Form

8936

OMB No. 1545-2137

Qualified Plug-in Electric Drive Motor Vehicle Credit
©

2010

Attach to your tax return.

Attachment
Sequence No.

Department of the Treasury
Internal Revenue Service

Name(s) shown on return

125

Identifying number

Note.
● Use this form to claim the credit for certain plug-in electric vehicles (other than two- or three-wheeled or low-speed
four-wheeled vehicles).
● Claim the credit for certain two- or three-wheeled or low-speed four-wheeled plug-in electric vehicles on Form 8834.
● Claim the credit for certain alternative motor vehicles or plug-in electric vehicle conversions on Form 8910.

Part I

Tentative Credit

Use a separate column for each vehicle. If you need more columns, use
additional Forms 8936 and include the totals on lines 6 and 10.

1

Year, make, and model of vehicle

1

2

Enter date vehicle was placed in service (MM/DD/YYYY)

2

3

Tentative credit (see instructions for amount to enter)

3

(a) Vehicle 1

/

(b) Vehicle 2

/

/

(c) Vehicle 3

/

/

/

Next: If you did NOT use your vehicle for business or investment purposes and did not have a credit from a partnership or
S corporation, skip Part II and go to Part III. All others, go to Part II.

Part II

Credit for Business/Investment Use Part of Vehicle
%

4

Business/investment use percentage (see instructions)

4

5

Multiply line 3 by line 4

5

6

Add columns (a) through (c) on line 5

6

7

Qualified plug-in electric drive motor vehicle credit from partnerships and S corporations

7

8

Business/investment use part of credit. Add lines 6 and 7. Partnerships and S corporations,
report this amount on Schedule K; all others, report this amount on Form 3800, line 1y

8

Part III
9

%

%

Credit for Personal Use Part of Vehicle

If you skipped Part II, enter the amount from line 3. If you
completed Part II, subtract line 5 from line 3

9

10

Add columns (a) through (c) on line 9

10

11

Enter the amount from Form 1040, line 46, or Form 1040NR, line 44

11

12

Personal credits from Form 1040 or 1040NR (see instructions)

12

13

Subtract line 12 from line 11

13

14

Personal use part of credit. Enter the smaller of line 10 or line 13 here and on Form 1040, line 53,
or Form 1040NR, line 50. Check box c on that line and enter “8936” in the space next to that box.
If line 13 is smaller than line 10, see instructions

14

For Paperwork Reduction Act Notice, see instructions.

Cat. No. 37751E

Form

8936

(2010)

Form 8936 (2010)

General Instructions
Section references are to the Internal Revenue Code.

Purpose of Form
For tax years beginning after 2008, use Form 8936 to
figure your credit for qualified plug-in electric drive
motor vehicles you placed in service during your tax
year. The credit attributable to depreciable property
(vehicles used for business or investment purposes) is
treated as a general business credit. Any credit not
attributable to depreciable property is treated as a
personal credit.
Taxpayers that are not partnerships or S corporations,
and whose only source of this credit is from those
pass-through entities, are not required to complete or
file this form. Instead, they can report this credit directly
on line 1y of Form 3800.

Qualified Plug-in Electric Drive Motor
Vehicle
For vehicles acquired (a vehicle is not “acquired” before
the date on which title to that vehicle passes under state
law) before 2010, this is a new vehicle with at least four
wheels that:
● Draws propulsion using a traction battery with at
least 4 kilowatts of capacity, and
● Uses an offboard source of energy to recharge the
battery.
For vehicles acquired after 2009, this is a new vehicle
with at least four wheels that:
● Has a gross vehicle weight of less than 14,000
pounds, and
● Is propelled to a significant extent by an electric
motor that draws electricity from a battery that has a
capacity of not less than 4 kilowatt hours and is
capable of being recharged from an external source of
electricity.

Page

2

In addition to certification, the following requirements
must be met to qualify for the credit:
● You are the owner of the vehicle. If the vehicle is
leased, only the lessor and not the lessee, is entitled to
the credit;
● You placed the vehicle in service during your tax
year;
● The original use of the vehicle began with you;
● You acquired the vehicle for use or to lease to
others, and not for resale; and
● You use the vehicle primarily in the United States.
Exception. If you are the seller of a qualified plug-in
electric drive motor vehicle to a tax-exempt
organization, governmental unit, or a foreign person or
entity, and the use of that vehicle is described in section
50(b)(3) or (4), you can claim the credit, but only if you
clearly disclose in writing to the purchaser the amount of
the tentative credit allowable for the vehicle (from line 3
of Form 8936).
More information. For details, see the following.
● Section 30D.
● Notice 2009-54, 2009-26 I.R.B. 1124, available at
http://www.irs.gov/irb/2009-26_IRB/ar07.html.
● Notice 2009-89, 2009-48 I.R.B. 714, available at
http://www.irs.gov/irb/2009-48_IRB/ar09.html.

Credit Phaseout
The credit is subject to a phaseout (reduction) once the
vehicle manufacturer (or, for a foreign manufacturer, its
U.S. distributor) sells 200,000 of these vehicles to a
retailer for use in the United States after 2009. The
phaseout begins in the second calendar quarter after
the quarter in which the 200,000th vehicle was sold.
Then the phaseout allows 50% of the full credit for 2
quarters, 25% of the full credit for 2 additional
quarters, and no credit thereafter.

Certification and other requirements. Generally, you
can rely on the manufacturer’s (or, in the case of a
foreign manufacturer, its domestic distributor’s)
certification that a specific make, model, and model year
vehicle qualifies for the credit and the amount of the
credit for which it qualifies.

Basis Reduction

If, however, the IRS publishes an announcement that
the certification for any specific make, model, and model
year vehicle has been withdrawn, you cannot rely on the
certification for such a vehicle purchased after the date
of publication of the withdrawal announcement.

A vehicle that qualifies for the qualified plug-in electric
drive motor vehicle credit on this form cannot be used to
claim the alternative motor vehicle credit on Form 8910.
Also, the vehicle will not qualify for the qualified plug-in
electric motor vehicle credit on Form 8834.

If you purchased a vehicle and its certification was
withdrawn on or after the date of purchase, you can rely
on such certification even if you had not placed the
vehicle in service or claimed the credit by the date the
withdrawal announcement was published by the IRS.
The IRS will not attempt to collect any understatement
of tax liability attributable to reliance on the certification
as long as you purchased the vehicle on or before the
date the IRS published the withdrawal announcement.

Unless you elect not to claim the credit, you may have to
reduce the basis of each vehicle by the sum of the
amounts entered on lines 5 and 9 for that vehicle.

Coordination With Other Credits

Recapture of Credit
If the vehicle no longer qualifies for the credit, you may
have to recapture part or all of the credit. For details, see
section 30D(f)(5).

Form 8936 (2010)

Page

3

Specific Instructions

Line 12

Line 3

Enter the total, if any, credits from Form 1040, lines 47
through 50 (or Form 1040NR, lines 45 through 47);
Form 5695, line 11; Form 8834, line 22; Form 8910,
line 21; and Schedule R, line 22.

Tentative Credit
Enter the credit allowable for the year, make, and model
of vehicle you entered on line 1. You can generally rely
on the manufacturer’s (or domestic distributor’s)
certification of the credit allowable as explained above.
Tentative credit amounts acknowledged by the IRS are
available at
http://www.irs.gov/businesses/article/0,,id=214841,00.html.
Or you can visit IRS.gov and search for “Plug-in Electric
Vehicle Credit (IRC 30 and 30D).”

Line 4
Enter the percentage of business/investment use.
Enter 100% if the vehicle is used solely for business
purposes or you are claiming the credit as the seller of
the vehicle.
If the vehicle is used for both business purposes and
personal purposes, determine the percentage of
business use by dividing the number of miles the vehicle
is driven during the year for business purposes or for the
production of income (not to include any commuting
mileage) by the total number of miles the vehicle is
driven for all purposes. Treat vehicles used by your
employees as being used 100% for business/investment
purposes if the value of personal use is included in the
employees’ gross income, or the employees reimburse
you for the personal use. If you report the amount of
personal use of the vehicle in your employee’s gross
income and withhold the appropriate taxes, enter
“100%” for the percentage of business/investment use.
If during the tax year you convert property used solely
for personal purposes to business/investment use (or
vice versa), figure the percentage of business/
investment use only for the number of months you use
the property in your business or for the production of
income. Multiply that percentage by the number of
months you use the property in your business or for the
production of income and divide the result by 12. For
example, if you converted a vehicle to 50% business
use for the last 6 months of the year, you would enter
25% on line 4 (50% multiplied by 6 divided by 12).
For more information, see Pub. 463, Travel,
Entertainment, Gift, and Car Expenses.

Line 7
Enter total qualified plug-in electric drive motor vehicle
credits from:
● Schedule K-1 (Form 1065), box 15 (code P), and
● Schedule K-1 (Form 1120S), box 13 (code P).

Line 14
If you cannot use part of the personal portion of the
credit because of the tax liability limit, the unused
credit is lost. The unused personal portion of the credit
cannot be carried back or forward to other tax years.
Paperwork Reduction Act Notice. We ask for the
information on this form to carry out the Internal
Revenue laws of the United States. You are required to
give us the information. We need it to ensure that you
are complying with these laws and to allow us to figure
and collect the right amount of tax.
You are not required to provide the information
requested on a form that is subject to the Paperwork
Reduction Act unless the form displays a valid OMB
control number. Books or records relating to a form or
its instructions must be retained as long as their
contents may become material in the administration of
any Internal Revenue law. Generally, tax returns and
return information are confidential, as required by
section 6103.
The time needed to complete and file this form will
vary depending on individual circumstances. The
estimated burden for individual taxpayers filing this form
is approved under OMB control number 1545-0074 and
is included in the estimates shown in the instructions for
their individual income tax return. The estimated burden
for all other taxpayers who file this form is shown below.
3 hr., 49 min.
Recordkeeping
Learning about the law
or the form
12 min.
Preparing, copying, assembling,
and sending the form to the IRS
16 min.
If you have comments concerning the accuracy of
these time estimates or suggestions for making this form
simpler, we would be happy to hear from you. See the
instructions for the tax return with which this form is
filed.