Vehicle data: NHTSA vPIC · Tax rules: IRS · Data updated: July 17, 2026
People file tax returns on what this site says. Each rule below is written so you can check it. Catch us breaking one and you have found an error worth reporting — contact is on the about page .
Our sourcing rules
Every tax figure cites an IRS primary source inline: the Schedule 1-A instructions, the OBBBA provisions page, FS-2026-09, or Notice 2025-57. A dollar amount with no citation next to it breaks this policy. Every assembly fact cites NHTSA vPIC, the federal VIN decoder. Folk rules like "a VIN starting with 3 means Mexico" appear only as retired myths, never as verdicts.
Other people's words get three rules of their own. No rule on who qualifies rests on a blog alone. When a blog and the IRS text disagree, the IRS wins and the blog goes uncited. Quotes from Reddit and other forums run word for word, with the thread and date named. We never dress them up as expert comment. And we never copy rival lists or rankings — every made-in-the-USA verdict here traces to a per-VIN vPIC lookup, not to someone else's table.
This deduction is new. Signed July 4, 2025, first filed in 2026 — and the guidance still moves. We check irs.gov monthly. Every page carries a "Data updated" date. Each December (2026, then 2027) we re-check every rule against the current Schedule 1-A instructions.
Corrections
An error we find, or you report, gets fixed on the page. It is then logged with a date in the change-log on our methodology page . The first entry is July 17, 2026. A change of substance always gets a log line. A typo fix does not. To report an error, email the editor with the page URL and the source you checked. One sixty-second email beats a wrong return for the next thousand readers.
AI assistance disclosure
Machine research is how a small team keeps up with a moving tax rule. Hiding it would break our own sourcing standard. The specifics: AI tools gather and cross-check the data, from IRS releases to NHTSA vPIC records. They also draft text. A human editor then checks every figure against its named source before anything publishes. No page ships on machine output alone. AI never decides a verdict here. It never adds an unchecked citation. It never answers reader mail. The VIN checker and the calculator are not AI at all: one is a database lookup, the other a published formula ( methodology ).
How we make money
The plan is lead referrals: refinance and insurance offers. When those CTAs go live, each will carry an FTC "advertiser disclosure" label right above it, not a footer footnote. Money cannot move two things. The tools return the same verdict whether or not you click an offer. And negative answers stay negative — a leased car gets "no deduction" with no softening for a sponsor. No lender, dealer, carmaker, or tax-prep firm owns or funds CarLoanCheckup. We have no ties to the IRS or NHTSA either ( who we are , what this is not ).