$42 K tax break on the hottest electric sports car on the planet: best green incentive or worthless spending?
It sounds too good to be true, but here it is: You can buy a 2009 Tesla Roadster, with a list price of $109,900, and pay just $67,800 for it. At least, you can if you live in Colorado and buy it before December 31. That’s when a special Colorado tax credit, designed to encourage the purchase of low-emission cars, is due to be capped to eliminate the huge credit end.
$42K Tesla tax credit details
Colorado residents can get a credit on their 2009 income tax for up to 85 percent of the difference between the price of certain alternative-fueled vehicles and the price of an equivalent vehicle running on liquid fuel.
In the case of the 2009 Tesla Roadster, the tax credit is $42,083. Which translates to a healthy 38.6-percent discount on a brand-new Tesla.
That’s better than the best incentive you could get on some deeply undesirable model from the most desperate dealer in the country. And this sounds like the most generous green government rebate ever.
The generous Tesla tax credit has car-lovers stunned and amused and some taxpayers fuming with anger.
“Colorado is broke, but they can offer a $42,000 rebate on a sports car,” one critic emailed 7News.
“Is the thin air up there distorting people’s better judgment?” joked Jeremy Korzeniewski on green.autoblog.com.
“A good question is how do Colorado tax payers feel about their hard earned money going to the wealthy to purchase a Tesla Roadster?
While the rest of you/us and our employers are tightening our belts to get through these tough financial times, your liberal state government (and Federal for that matter) is spending like gamblers in Las Vegas, giving the wealthy who purchase a $109,900 Tesla a $42,000 discount.”- says iReport.
That bodacious deal is partly why state lawmakers earlier this year passed a measure to cap the clean-machine tax credit at no more than $6,000.
But that law doesn’t take effect until January, giving eco-minded — and rich — motorists a couple months to buy the sleek two-seater that flies from zero to 60 mph in 3.9 seconds.
“Someone who can afford a $109,000 car does not need a $40,000 tax credit,” said Rep. Mark Ferrandino, a Denver Democrat and member of the Joint Budget Committee.
“I do think it’s ridiculous that people are buying a luxury car and getting a tax credit that’s equal to, greater than what most people by a normal car for,” Ferrandino added. “For every car that’s bought over this time, we’re losing $43,000 roughly on this car, so that’s money that we won’t have coming into the state otherwise that would help us.”
It’s timely news for Tesla Motors, which is launching its first Colorado showroom — they call it a “gallery” — on Boulder’s Pearl Street Mall Friday night. Tesla spokesman Ricardo Reyes said the company had several motives for expanding to Colorado, including the tax credit.
“It’s no coincidence that we try to go to markets where they have laws on the books that try to promote clean cars,” Reyes told the Denver post.
State officials expected no more than 10 taxpayers to take advantage of the Tesla tax credit, said Mark Couch, a spokesman for the Colorado Department of Revenue.
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