How can I carry forward energy tax credit into 2024?

Question

Hello,

I've made upgrades to my house the past year. I've installed new insulation, energy star windows, and hyper heat mini split heat pumps. I also qualify for the clean vehicle and EV charger credit. Because of all the credits I qualify for this year, it is over the amount paid in taxes by $60. The EV chatger and clean vehicle credit cannot be carried forward. I would like to carry forward some of the tax credit into 2024. It looks like line 16 on form 5695 allows for me to do this. How can I use freetaxusa to input an amount on line 16?

Thanks!

KristineS · Answer

Hi ABel408, thanks for the question.

The IRS has an order of precendence for how both the refundable and non-refundable credits are applied to your tax return once calculated. FreeTaxUSA is built to those requirements so there is no way to switch the order.

Energy credits are part of the refundable credit family and applied in a pre-determined order. Some of the credits, if not used, are allowed to be carried forward in following years.

abel408 · Answer

Also, if this is a calculated field that cannot be manually entered, is there anyway to apply the EV and charger credit first, before the energy credit is applied? This way, I can receive the full EV and charger credit as well as the energy tax credit, but anything left over from the energy credit should carry forward to next year. Currently, FreeTaxUSA is calculating the energy credit first and then the EV and charger credit, but because you cannot carry over those credits, It's showing a credit of $0 for my charger credit.