Who Says They Can't Tax the Sun?

kaitie

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If they are actually being paid by the utility company for the excess energy, the income would already be taxed as income, correct? Wouldn't this be double taxing?
 

tko

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you're making a lot of assumptions

1.) I believe electric companies themselves are charged to use the utility power system, but it's a complex subject.

2.) If everyone had solar power, and no one paid any tax nor any electric bills, how would the electric power grid be maintained and expanded? You realize they're are subsystems, circuit breakers, operating systems, maintenance.

3.) There is always a difference between private and business use. A private car pays no special taxes to use public roads, but a big rig operated for profit does. Selling electricity is a business.


Actually, I did read the article. And it says that people who already have the solar panels in place wouldn't be taxed. I assume a grandfather clause. But, a customer of the power company who has solar panels installed after the law goes into effect and then sells power back to the power company would be charged the tax. My point is if they are a customer of the power company, they have already been paying for the infrastructure. So the argument by tko doesn't hold water.

The whole thing is troubling to me. My brother and I have actually been looking for property in Missouri, Arkansas, or Oklahoma. We are no longer looking in Oklahoma due to this law.
 

kaitie

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My problem with it is that by stating you are taxing this specific group separately (aside from the fact that it looks as if they are being taxed double), it's going to make people less likely to adopt green energy.

If you go to a country like Japan, an awful lot of the houses have solar panels. Vending machines are run on solar, lights, etc. It's incredibly common. I asked once how they did it and was told the government basically helped people to buy the, cutting back on the costs.

Personally, I think we need a program here to supplement the cost to help people afford them. They're already prohibitively expensive for the vast majority of people. Adding an extra tax will take away (or diminish) one of the main direct results--the money saved.

I don't mind the idea of taxing income brought in from doing this, but I definitely think that making it a direct tax on solar is to try to discourage people from using it. If we ever reach a point where the majority of our energy comes from clean sources (something I hope and pray comes sooner rather than later), then of course we would need to find a way to deal with it. However, we already pay taxes for a reason. I don't see why income tax funds couldn't be used for upkeep.

If for some reason it couldn't and at that point they wanted to add an extra charge, then I could see that. I imagine the cost of upkeep would be less than most people are paying in energy bills right now, so if energy was 100% clean, it would still put most people ahead of where they are now.

We need to be very cautious about how we present this type of technology right now. There are too many very powerful lobbies in the US trying to sabotage green energies. We need to be making them attractive and easy to get because we need to get to a point where we use clean energy. It's a requirement. Period. Things like this will only make it harder to get there.