Colorado EV Tax Credit SNAFU

[SageBrush]

Colorado has a $5k refundable tax credit for EV purchases I took advantage of in 2017 by buying an EV in 3/2017.
If I had not bought an EV, my tax liability would have been about $1,600 for the year and about $400 for Q1

Since the credit is refundable, Colorado has notified me that I'll receive a refund of about $3,400 ... but they will charge me $32 in penalties and interest for not making advance tax payments throughout the year. I am self employed. The letter notifying me of the charges states that pre-payments are due when the annual tax liability NET of credits is over $1000. So I think they agree with me that no pre-payments were late ... but they penalized me anyway.

I haven't decided if $32 is enough money to spend my time arguing with the tax authorities, but it is I think worth mentioning as a warning to those who are considering reducing tax pre-payments in order to receive their tax credit early. We all may be right, but still have to deal with the consequences of our actions. And from my past experience with the tax authorities (albeit Federal in that case,) they can be very difficult to reason with, no matter how trivial and straight-forward the issue.

 

[ThisIsTrue]

Jeez, that's pathetic.

 

[SageBrush]

Nah, the federal case was pathetic.

I made a poor bet by shorting oil some years ago (as usual -- correct analysis, but bad timing) and lost a large sum of money. I was then notified by the IRS that I owed them something over $300k for taxes unpaid on the stock gains, interest and penalties. I called the IRS and explained that I had lost money. That fell on deaf ears. I filed an appeal and spoke with a nice lady in CA who told me that she had sort of heard about stock shorts, and would cut my debt to the IRS in half.

Not mollified, I filed in US tax court. The IRS lawyer in charge of the Western United States who was to prosecute my case listened to me for a couple of minutes and then spent the next couple minutes cursing the idiots who filled his plate with nonsense. He quickly dismissed the case, but his review of my tax return found errors that amounted to a couple hundred dollars ... I had overpaid.

 

[ThisIsTrue]

OK, yeah, THAT's pathetic! Colorado: an eye-roller.