Home >Articles >Congress Passes Retroactive Extension of Federal Tax Credit for Energy Efficient Homes

Congress Passes Retroactive Extension of Federal Tax Credit for Energy Efficient Homes

Dec 17, 2014

Last night the U.S. Senate passed the previously approved House version of a tax credit extenders bill that includes the extension of the 45L $2,000 tax credit for energy efficient homes.  The bill originally passed by the House only retroactively extends the credit for 2014.  This means that this extension expires on December 31, 2014.

The White House was in the negotiations of the legislation and President Obama is expected to sign the legislation.

RESNET sees this as not being the best policy for the tax credit.  RESNET advocated for moving the credit forward only.

The CQ Roll Call reported that Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-OR)., opposed the retroactive extension. “Nearly all of the $41 billion in this legislation is going to go to things that happened months and months ago,” Wyden said on the floor Tuesday night.

What Congress’ action did, however, was to retroactively extend all credits that had expired December 31, 2013.

A possible bright side is that Congress will have to face this issue again in 2015 and there will be an opportunity for RESNET’s proposed improvements to 45L be part of Congress’ action in 2015.

RESNET is working hard with its strategic allies on education and advocacy for the reform of 45L when the new Congress goes into session in January.  This initiative would make the credit permanent, self-correcting and based on the Energy Rating Index of the 2015 International Energy Conservation Code.