Used Clean Vehicle Credit - Return Rejected

Fromtheisles
Fromtheisles Member Posts: 1 Newcomer
edited February 13 in Credits/Deductions

My spouse and I both purchased Used EVs with the tax credit in 2025 and transferred the credits to the dealership at time of sale. Each car was registered in our individual names and SSNs. We are Married Filing Jointly. VINs match the Form 15400 report submitted by dealer and copied to us. When we try to file with FreeTaxUSA, we get rejected for the "VIN's don't match the TIN's."

There is nowhere in the FreeTaxUSA software to input different TINs for different vehicles. There also seems to be no spot on Form 8936 to add a different TIN for a different vehicle. I tried the button for confirming the VINs are correct, but it was rejected by the IRS a second time.

Is this a bug? Will it be fixed soon? We confirmed the VINs match perfectly and triple-checked them letter by letter.

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Answers

  • TaxMorgan
    TaxMorgan FreeTaxUSA Agent Posts: 79 image
    Hello Fromtheisles,

    This is a limitation in how Form 8936 is structured. The form only has one field for the taxpayer identification number, which defaults to the primary taxpayer's SSN on a joint return. When the IRS receives the dealer's Time of Sale report (Form 15400), they match the VIN to the specific SSN that was reported by the dealer. If your vehicles were registered under different SSNs and the dealers reported them that way, the IRS system will reject the e-file because it can't match both VINs to a single TIN.

    I know mailing isn't ideal, but it's currently the only way to get your return processed when each spouse has a vehicle registered under their individual SSN on a joint return.

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