U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer has announced a plan to give tax credits not only for hydrogen fuel cell cars and trucks that travel down the highway, but also for other H2 vehicles that are used for industry or for off-road purposes.
Right now if you use TurboTax, a tax accountant or even do your own taxes, on the forms are tax credits that cover alternative fuel vehicles. I’ve even seen hydrogen cars listed on my tax forms even though they aren’t for sale yet.
The way the current tax code reads is that hydrogen cars that are used for transportation down the highways and byways of the U. S. are eligible for sizable tax credits. Senator Schumer wants to amend section 30B of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (Alternative Motor Vehicle Credit) to include other types of hydrogen-powered vehicles as well.
The purpose of the amendment is to give tax credits of between $8,000 and $40,000 for buyers of hydrogen forklifts, palette trucks and other off-road H2 powered vehicles. These tax breaks will help to incentivize the market, promoting sales and creating jobs.
If the bill is written correctly this could open the door for tax breaks from all sorts of other vehicles not mentioned in the press release such as hydrogen fuel cell tractors, H2 airplanes, low-speed H2 commuter vehicles, airport baggage handling vehicles and hydrail (hydrogen trains).
The potential for this bill could means accelerated production of all sorts of hydrogen-powered vehicles not intended for highway travel. The result of more hydrogen vehicles of the types listed will be cleaner air, less dependence on foreign energy sources and more domestic jobs.
The fuel cell industry is expected to create 40,000 jobs over the next 10 years and this will be nothing compared to all of the jobs in the supporting industries that will be created in order to manufacture and put these fuel cell vehicles into the market.
If you’d like to contact Senator Schumer showing him your support for his bill you can do so here: http://schumer.senate.gov/
Whoa, whoa, jump out the way having that good infroamtion about tax creds for hydro cars.