Posted on 01/03/2018 9:32:28 AM PST by huldah1776
WASHINGTON, N.C. (WNCT) There is growing concern in some counties about how much solar farms are actually costing taxpayers.
Under North Carolina law, counties must give solar companies an 80 tax abatement. For smaller counties like Beaufort, that equates to around a $543,000 tax loss each year.
A planned 600 acre solar farm in the county threatens to bring the total tax lost to well over $1 million a year. The more solar farms a county has, the greater that number.
Our taxpayers here are paying for that tax abatement, and theyre also paying for an increase in energy cost, said Beaufort County Commissioner Ron Buzzeo.
(Excerpt) Read more at wnct.com ...
You should be governor.
There’s no shortage of “conservatives” who game the government and jockey for position at the fed feed trough with the best of them.
600 acres of beets, corn, soybeans, cattle pasture? The “conservatives” will complain that it’s overtaxed.
600 acres of solar panels? The “conservatives” will be screaming from the rooftops about how unfair it is that they pay the same property tax rates as the farmers and undeveloped land owners pay.
You are free to show me that this plant stands on it's own two feet with no subsidies, but I doubt it. In any case it raises rates.
I haven't said any of that. But if that plant was "fossil fuel" it would provide cheaper power, and tax revenue. Forcing me to use inefficient power to assuage some lefty politicians "global warming" guilt is a "cost".
because calling lower taxes a cost is based on the assumption that the government is entitled to all your money and any they let you keep is a "cost". How else does lower taxes equate to a "cost"?
I haven't said any of that....
Yep, good point. Both sides have their favored subsidy babies. Both sides like the cheap immigrants, though.
I’ve written this about religious groups getting tax abatement.
Losing property tax collections to a non-taxed entity isn’t really money lost. Real estate value is demand. Now, a religious institution like a church or even better a college raises demand, and therefore the sum real estate value in a jurisdiction. I doubt solar farms have that effect. But whatever loss of value they cause by taking land off the tax tables, they probably add an equal amount by increasing scarcity, and therefore value. This may not be helpful if the town reassesses your property, but it’s not lost tax revenue.
On the other hand, I’m not ENTIRELY sure that a solar farm doesn’t reduce demand.
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