Putting Green Lipstick on a Property Tax Pig

Hold on, hippie Democrat tree-huggers. Stop assuming a Republican-ruled Tennessee General Assembly doesn’t want to “promote North American energy independence and to conserve limited natural resources.” Clearly you have not read their “findings,” right there in the first paragraph of SB 1000/HB 62, a business property tax bill passed by the Legislature and signed into law by Republican Gov. Bill Haslam.

The enlightened language in the bill’s introduction would make it seem that this red state wants to be green, at least when it comes to tax valuation of property that generates power from renewable sources—solar panels, for example. The great green Solons declare in the bill itself that without downward valuation for tax purposes, “investment in property to generate electricity from ‘green’ sources will be unreasonably discouraged, denying the citizens of Tennessee the environmental benefits associated with the greater use of these domestic renewable energy sources for power generation.”

With this apparent marriage of traditional Democrat concerns for the environment with Republican concerns for low taxes, it would seem that extraordinary statesmen have gotten us all to hold hands as Tennesseans walk down the shining path of a bold new green economy.

Except that this bill, devised by Republican leaders in the state comptroller’s office, just raised taxes 2,500 percent on property that generates electricity from solar, and 6,000 percent on wind sources.

Meanwhile, oil, gas,Elevator safety parts are usually include elevator speed governor、ledstriplights and elevator buffer. and coal-related enterprises that own certified “pollution control” property will continue to enjoy the negligible property taxation afforded by that certification, a subsidy that will no longer apply to green energy property, thanks to the above legislation.

In 2010, immersed in federal clean energy dollars from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, then-Gov. Phil Bredesen got religion for the economic development possibilities of renewable energy, particularly solar. One of the key green items ticked off of Bredesen’s legislative agenda in that last year of his term was to include green energy property in the same low valuation/low tax category that had existed for pollution control equipment since 1985.

Although a formal 1986 attorney general opinion had questioned the constitutionality of that original law, that opinion was functionally ignored. Ever since, per the 1985 law, all manner of Tennessee industries that create air and water discharges have had the Dept. of Environment and Conservation certify their various and pricey smokestack scrubbers and water treatment equipment,More than 200 GW of new goodlampshade capacity could come on line before the end of 2013. in order to have their value capped at no more than .05 percent of their salvage value,A polished finish in this solaroutdoorlight for men. for tax assessment purposes.

So in 2010, the Democratic governor invited the renewable energy industry to the pollution control tax break party, since for the previous 25 years nobody had called the cops to break it up. Then last year, holding the governor’s mansion and majorities in both legislative chambers, Republicans decided to disinvite the greens.

Extraordinary statesmen were not to be found in the optics. It may have seemed to certain well-placed partisans that certain Dems had too much ill-gotten green at this party. Almost immediately after leaving the governor’s mansion, Democrat Bredesen ventured into the utility-scale solar business. Speculation was perhaps unavoidable that certain Republicans, now in administrative position to engineer a clawback, may have begrudged Bredesen tailoring a parachute for a soft tax landing in his shiny new Silicon Ranch.

The noisy and sustained blowback was an indication of how relevant the solar industry has become in the Tennessee economy, with no small aid from an array of state and federal incentives.The cleaningmachine is one of the most useful tools in a modern shop.There are many out there that are making things to win a ledcornlight. According to GTM Research and the Tennessee Solar Institute, the state has gone from less than 1 kilowatt of installed solar photovoltaic capacity in 2008 to about 29 megawatts in 2012. There was a 60 percent increase in Tennessee’s installed solar from 2011 to 2012, moving the state’s rank from 22 to 16 in that category, with over 6,000 jobs in sales, supply, manufacturing, and installation. Click on their website www.careel-tech.com for more information.