On schedule A there is a box at the bottom that allows one to use their itemize deductions even it is lower than their standard deduction. When I elected to do this it increased my tax return by $900. I guess this is better than nothing. There is another box that allows one to use the standard deduction in place of the itemized. I hope it works for some of you.

In addition I discovered I can get an additional $200 on top of the $900 if I choose to file married separate return. The problem with this is that I would have to a paper return since I live in a community law state. There additional forms on top of this. I think I want to go the quick and easy way and rid myself of this tax credit.

Consider writing your congressman if you are unhappy with the outcome of your hybrid tax credit.

My software automatically uses either Sch. A or the standard deduction, whichever is higher.

As for the tax credits (hybrid and other), those go on a different part of the 1040, and have nothing to do with itemizing. And I'm >=99% sure we didn't have to file any additional forms when we lived in Texas, though that was in pre-E-file days.

It appears you missed the point. Using the lower deduction actually gave me more of a return. All programs that I know uses the higher of the two. I had to force it to use the lower of the two to increase my tax return by more than $900.

We did our taxes last week and I was not sure what the standard return from PA was for an HCH - apparently from form 8910 this is $2,100 like many others are posting. We increased our amount of return by $1,100 (from $35 to $1,135)! Woo-hoo. I did try it with both higher and lower standard deductions to see which was best. Add to that the incredibly low $500 from PA as buying-incentive and this car has saved us ~$1,500 over not buying it (and it is hardly more than $1,500 over a regular Civic) so the purchase has been worth it (nevermind the savings in gas cost). Wheee.

--> Averaged 685 miles/week and 49.0 mpg in first year (35.7k miles from Aug 7, 2006 to Aug 7, 2007)