Shock: Taxpayers fleeced by solar swindle

Banks inflate solar value for tax credit | Grist

In a phone conversation last month, Jigar Shah of Carbon War Room (formerly chief of solar-as-a-service company SunEdison) disclosed that while solar leasing companies can install residential solar for between $4.00 and $5.00 per watt, they routinely claim federal tax credits on the "fair market value," a price nearly twice as high. A solar tax lawyer confirmed this practice and that it also applies to the program providing cash grants in lieu of the federal Investment Tax Credit. "The equipment may be financed in a way that allows the solar company to calculate Treasury cash grants on the fair market value of the systems rather than their cost," he wrote to me this week.

The practice boosts banks' bottomline at the expense of federal taxpayers and unnecessarily increases the cost of public subsidies for renewable energy.