I realize I may take some slings and arrows for this, but hopefully any sincere and seasoned advice will offset it.
On a 2019 1040 for some reason I took a $7,500 electric vehicle credit for a USED electric car. This is a very savvy and intelligent client, and in all honesty I believe she provided the invoice just to see if it would fly, knowing the car wasn't eligible. Nevertheless I acknowledge it is completely my fault, and the client received a 20% accuracy-related penalty of $1,500. Looking back I do not know why I would have thought the car qualified, except that I remember reading two sources about the credit, neither of which referred to the requirement that only new vehicles qualify. It also occurred during the initial maelstrom of Covid.
In 30 years of practice I have never had a client receive this penalty so I have no experience trying to get it waived. My due diligence process is probably more thorough than 90% of practitioners and includes a 5-page tax questionnaire. In other words, I am not a careless practitioner by ANY measure. In any event, I've done some reading on the subject to get up to speed, but my primary question at this point is whether requesting abatement of the penalty should be made from the taxpayer's position since it is they who are being assessed, or should it be from me as the tax professional who signed the return? It seems their reliance on me is one of the reasonable care provisions that could be cited in the request for abatement. That strategy may result in a penalty being assessed on me, but I am prepared to address that if it happens.
Any advice on penalty waiver strategy would be appreciated.