There’s a new program to help Missouri families conserve energy and save on their taxes. The state Department of Natural Resources has finalized formal certification requirements and guidelines for Missourians interested in becoming a certified home energy auditor.

"People do and have offered various kinds of home energy audits in a lot of places in Missouri before, but there’s never been a tax deduction and there’s never been a need to certify any body in order to provide that there’s some kind of quality and some kind of reliability of those audit," said DNR spokesman Kerry Cordray.

Missouri taxpayers who use a certified home energy auditor will be eligible for the tax deduction starting in 2009.

"The energy audit has to be performed by an energy auditor that has been certified by the department of natural resources," Cordray said.

Taxpayers can deduct the cost of the audit and related recommendations.  

"The real reason for it is to just assure people who get a home energy audit that if that auditor is certified by the state, it means that they’ve been trained know what they’re doing they’re not just company XYZ out there doing something that they call a home energy audit," Cordray said.

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