Still time for ‘green’ tax credit

Think­ing of mak­ing some “green” home improve­ments? As you prob­a­bly already know, the gov­ern­ment offers hun­dreds in tax incen­tives to home­own­ers who pump up their home’s effi­ciency. Many of these tax cred­its end this December.

Accord­ing to an arti­cle called, “Give Me a (Tax) Break” in the November/December 2011 issue of Nat­ural Home mag­a­zine, since 2005 the fed­eral gov­ern­ment “has offered a vari­ety of tax cred­its to help defray the total cost of res­i­den­tial upgrades that pro­duce years of util­ity sav­ings but require a large upfront invest­ment.” One of the biggest cred­its expires at the end of this year. It is the energy-efficiency tax credit which can help pay for the instal­la­tion of energy-efficient heat­ing and cool­ing systems.

If you make some of these upgrades in time, the credit can be applied to your 2011 taxes by fil­ing IRS form 5695 with your taxes. Accord­ing to the arti­cle, prod­ucts eli­gi­ble for energy-efficiency must be pur­chased and installed by Dec. 31, 2011. The credit is capped at $500.

The other big fed­eral pro­gram is the renewable-energy tax credit, which cov­ers up to 30 per­cent of res­i­den­tial alternative-energy sys­tems. It has no cap and has been extended through 2016.

To find out if you qual­ify for other state and local incen­tives, look on the Data­base of State Incen­tives for Renew­ables & Effi­ciency (dsireusa.org). Other resources to learn more infor­ma­tion about these pro­grams include: Alliance to Save Energy (ase.org); The Amer­i­can Coun­cil for an Energy-Efficient Econ­omy (aceee.org); the National Asso­ci­a­tion of State Energy Offi­cials Onaseo.org); and Tax Incen­tives Assis­tance Project (energytaxincentives.org).

Good luck!

Tues­day Trip­pier lives in Delaware, is a writer and mother of four with a spe­cial inter­est in green living.

Posted by Tuesday Trippier on Nov 2 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.