solar credit, can you claim multiple times with upgrades?

[arf88]

I think most people have, but have not been audited by the IRS which is a good thing

[bob-n]

To make things even more complicated, different IRS auditors sometimes do interpret the tax code differently.

My advice, for what it's worth:
Don't expand if the justification relies on getting federal tax credit.
When you expand, claim credit on your taxes.
Have enough in savings so that if you get audited and disallowed, you aren't badly hurt.

The odds of getting audited are small. The odds of getting disallowed are even smaller. Just don't bet your next-of-kin that it is a sure thing, even if 50 people tell you that it is.

According to: https://www.kiplinger.com/taxes/tax-...udit-red-flags
"The IRS audited only 0.4% of all individual tax returns in 2019...Plus, the IRS audit rate is expected to drop even lower for 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic."

"The overall individual audit rate may only be about one in 250 returns, but the odds increase as your income goes up (especially if you have business income). IRS statistics for 2019 show that individuals with incomes between $200,000 and $1 million had up to a 1% audit rate (one out of every 100 returns examined). And 2.4% of individual returns reporting incomes of $1 million or more were audited in 2019."

[arf88]

Good points

I'm more curious than anything. I already filed a second time for my batteries prior, after my solar install. Just curious what the official rules are on this and it seems to be more in the gray area as far as the IRS goes.

"Congress wrote the law, the issue is whether the IRS has, or should, write a regulation to cover this situation that is not described in the law."

[Ampster]

Another grey area involves what value to use for the ITC, if one receives an SGIP rebate. The rebate does not usually fall in the same year as the installation.

I think Congress has a lot more important things to do than clarify an issue that may affect a small percentage of the population. Judgeing from the responses to this question, even the majority of the people in that small percentage have managed to find clarity on this issue. There are bigger issues facing this country.