I live in California and i'm wondering if the the 7,500 rebate will be guarenteed by next summer? Also do the launch states carry multipule volts or do i have to order it through them? I would just like to test drive one, or atlease see the colors in real life before i purchase mine. thank you.

To get a test drive, call you local dealer, they should have one for a test drive. You can order through any dealer or call or email the volt advisors at (877) 486-5846 or voltda101@gmexpert.com and they can locate a dealer with a demo car and an allocation for ordering. There are threads with good/bad dealers here on gm-volt.com, check you dealer after you get a name. (google
dealer+name site:gm-volt.com to see if they show up in any thread)



The 7500 rebate is at the federal level and at least for now is for anyone but does depend on your total tax. There were some congressmen trying to kill it for next year, but so far that was not successful. After we have an approved 2012 fed budget you'll know if they will be around next summer.



To be precise the cap on the rebate is 7500 or your tax liability for that year, whichever is smaller. If you did not earn enough you don't qualify for the full rebate.

To make it more concrete, using 2011 tax tables for a single person earning 63,500 with 5800 standard deduction and 3700 personal exception their taxable income is 54000, which means their tax liability is 7500 and they would get a full rebate. Deductions can vary but in general, a single person earning mid 60's or more will qualify for the full rebate.

For a married copule filling jointly, with a combined income of 72000, with 11500 standard deduction and 4500 exceptions, their tax liability would be $7550 and they should qualify for a full rebate.

If you are making more, but subject to the AMT, then you might not get the full rebate. (EDIT: This is not true, the rebate counts toward to AMT
it explicitly says "For vehicles purchased in 2010 or later, this credit can be used toward the alternative minimum tax (AMT).")

that helped alot, thank you. =]

If you are making more, but subject to the AMT, then you might not get the full rebate.

I was subject to AMT last year (married filing jointly) and as an experiment I added both credits to my 2010 taxes in TurboTax and TurboTax showed the full amount for each. AMT exists solely to raise your tax liability when your income contains/is dominated by "unearned" income (capital gains, etc). My AMT liability was modest due to those things, as my cap. gains tended to be long-term losses.

But, as they say, YMMV.

The $7500 federal tax credit is not subject to the AMT and, while anything is possible, the chances of it being gone by next summer are very small. Also note that if you live in CA you may be able to get a $1500 rebate (not a credit an actual check) from CARB.

I would disagree that the AMT is designed to raise the rate on unearned income. It's triggered by "preference items" like deductions for state and local taxes. Sort of off topic, but if you are subject to the AMT one piece of good news, besides getting your Volt credit, is that it's likely that any tax increases won't effect you since the AMT rate is higher than the ordinary rate before the Bush tax cuts. So a repeal of those cuts won't raise your taxes.

I was out of my area with my comment on why AMT exists, so I'll defer to your judgement. Nonetheless, my experiment results confirm your comment on AMT vs the EV credits.

@ IsoCyanic,

Here's a couple of links to check out with more information on the tax credit:

http://fueleconomy.gov/feg/taxphevb.shtml

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f8936.pdf

I was out of my area with my comment on why AMT existsI think everyone is out of their area with the AMT. It's gnarly. What kind of goofy system requires you to do two tax returns? If you're interested this is a pretty good description of the preferences and how they're treated: http://www.amtindividual.com/amt-preference-items.html

Originally, as you were probably thinking, it was designed to catch high income people who could use deductions and preferences to avoid paying much tax. That was then. Now it's more about the government needing money! LOL

Personally it was always bizarre that capital gains weren't a preference item under the AMT. If they just added that they could get rid of all other preference items and have a much simpler and much fairer result. Not holding my breadth on this one though.