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Elective Pay & IRA Tax Incentives Resources Page

Updated April 30, 2025

NEW RESOURCES & EVENTS:

NEW: Elective Pay Blueprints - April 2025
- Easily digestible best practice guidelines to organize your entity’s uptake of Elective Pay
NEW Guidance Brief: 501(c)(3) Tax Exempt Status Protection - April 21, 2025
NEW Alert: May 15, 2025 Filing Deadline and Extension Process - April 9, 2025
Guidance Brief: Elective Pay Refund Status - February 21, 2025
Guidance Brief: Executive Orders and Protecting Your Federal Funding - January 29, 2025
JUMP TO: IRS Office Hours for Elective Pay - March 2025
E-FILING: L4GG is proud to partner with Giraffe Financial to provide a full suite of Elective Pay pre-filing registration and e-filing services. Get started with Giraffe Financial here.

The Clean Energy Tax Navigator is an easy to use framework and interactive form that walks through the process of determining eligibility for Direct Pay, offering technical assistance, and in certain cases, direct pro bono services. It is designed to be a free, public one-stop shop providing tailored Elective Pay information to users at all stages from project ideation through tax form filing.

The Project Finance Hub, by Atlas Public Policy and launched in concert with the Navigator, offers a database of funding opportunities for clean energy projects.
Recorded trainings and slides on how to use the Navigator and Project Finance Hub are available on our Trainings page.

The IRS Pre-Filing Registration Portal is OPEN!

PRE-FILING REGISTRATION RESOURCES

IRS Office Hours for Elective Pay have resumed for 2025. Register here!
- All sessions are Wednesdays, 1-2:30pm ET, hosted virtually by the IRS
- 5/7, 5/21, 6/4, 6/18, 7/2, and 7/16
IRS Video Walk-Through of Pre-Filing Registration Portal (re-released July 2024)
Pre-Filing Registration Tool User Guide (with screenshots), IRS Publication 5884
IRS Energy Credits Online Permission Management User Guide (with screenshots), IRS Publication 5902
IRS Secure Messaging User Guide, IRS Publication 6025
- Secure Messaging is recommended for questions on existing Pre-Filing Registrations as of Oct. 2024
- Email for requesting technical assistance without a Pre-Filing Registration login: irs.elective.payment.or.transfer.of.credit@irs.gov
IRS recommends using Secure Messaging within the Pre-Filing Registration Portal (once you are logged in)
L4GG/WRI/GFOA/USDN Webinar: Demystifying the Elective Pay Process (video) - April 18, 2024
- Slide deck (with hyperlinks to resources)

L4GG WORKSHEETS, FACT SHEETS, ANNOTATED FORMS, & WEBINARS

Worksheets & Maps for Identifying Eligible Projects:

Electric Vehicle Purchases
Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (non-urban and low income only)
EV Infrastructure - 30C Tax Credit Eligibility Locator Map from DOE
ITC/PTC Projects

Annotated Tax Forms:
- See our Annotated Tax Forms page for annotated forms from tax years 2023 and 2024, plus corresponding IRS forms and IRS instructions.
- IRS also provides a video walkthrough and PDF summary of completing tax forms
Fact Sheets & Guidance Briefs:
- NEW: Elective Pay Blueprints - April 2025
  - Easily digestible best practice guidelines to organize your entity’s uptake of Elective Pay
- NEW Guidance Brief: 501(c)(3) Tax Exempt Status Protection - April 21, 2025
- NEW Alert: May 15, 2025 Filing Deadline and Extension Process - April 9, 2025
- Guidance Brief: Elective Pay Refund Status - February 21, 2025
- Guidance Brief: Executive Orders and Protecting Your Federal Funding - January 29, 2025
- Guidance Brief: Low-Income Communities Bonus (LICB) 2025 - UPDATED
- Guidance Brief: IRA Status Post-Election
- Guidance Brief: RFP Language for Prevailing Wage and Domestic Content
- Guidance Brief: Prevailing Wage & Apprenticeship (PWA) Requirements
- Guidance Brief: E-Filing vs. Paper Filing - UPDATED
- Guidance Brief: Direct Pay Documentation Checklist
- Guidance Brief: Restricted vs. Unrestricted Funds and the “No Excess Benefit” Rule
- Guidance Brief: When is a Lease Actually Financing? (financed EV ownership & credit eligibility)
- Guidance Brief: Municipal Bond Haircuts
- Guidance Brief: PTC and ITC
- Guidance Brief: Identifying a Tax Year for Government Entities
Webinars:
- L4GG/WRI/GFOA Integrating Elective Pay Tax Credits into Government Procurement and RFPs - December 10, 2024
  - Slide deck (hosted by WRI)
- L4GG’s accredited Continuing Legal Education (CLE): Maximizing Elective Pay Payments to Cities Under the Inflation Reduction Act
  - Free with the purchase code 2024L4GG
- CPCC w/ L4GG: Cash for Communities (video) - May 9, 2024
- L4GG/WRI/GFOA/USDN/SSDN: Slide decks for SSDN - May 1, 2024
- L4GG/WRI/GFOA/USDN Demystifying the Elective Pay Process (video) - April 18, 2024
  - Slide deck (with hyperlinks to resources)
- L4GG/CAP/NLC/BGA How Cities Can Take Advantage of Direct Pay (video) - Jan. 2024
  - Slide deck (with hyperlinks to resources)
- L4GG’s Direct Pay Overview Webinar - August 2023
- L4GG/Sabin Center Presentation to Local Governments
- Stanford Law School Lawyers for a Sustainable Economy
  - Elective Pay for Tribal Governments Part 1, Part 2, & Part 3 (links to YouTube)

LEGAL QUESTIONS & ANSWERS FROM L4GG EXPERTS

Elective Pay FAQs

If you have questions about elective pay for applicable entities that aren’t covered in our growing library of guidance documents, please click here to view our FAQ page, which hosts answers from our legal experts to some of the questions we most often receive.

If the guidance briefs and FAQ don’t sufficiently answer your question, we encourage you to visit the Clean Energy Tax Navigator for more tailored Elective Pay information.

HELPFUL PARTNER RESOURCES