Huge Tax Break for "Wind Farm" owners in Stimulus Package - Glenn Schleede

White House Press Release

One of the features IS the 50% Bonus Depreciation Deduction for all business capital investments made in 2008. So "wind farm" owners will, in fact, be able to deduct 60% of the value of their capital investment from their otherwise taxable income during 2008 --- regardless of whether the investment is financed with debt or equity.

Please be aware that LLC's that nearly all "wind farms" are owned by single-asset limited liability companies (LLCs) that are subsidiaries or affiliates of large corporations (e.g., FPL Group, JP Morgan, Iberdola, Shell, BP, Babcock & Brown). The IRS permits corporations to "consolidate" subsidiaries and affiliates with the parent company for tax purposes. This means that corporations like the FPL Group can use the huge accelerated depreciation and Production Tax Credit tax breaks generated by FPL Energy's "wind farm" LLCs to avoid paying taxes on profits from its highly profitable regulated utility, Florida Power & Light.

If the parent corporations can't use all the tax breaks generated by the "wind farms," they can sell or trade the credits to others.

AWEA recently announced that all the wind turbines that will be available in 2008 for installation in the US have already been committed. Therefore, it appears that there will be NO additional capital investment in "wind farms" AS A RESULT OF the stimulus package. Therefore, "wind farm" owners will be able to avoid paying millions in taxes with NO economic benefit such as those claimed by the President and House leaders.

As is often the case with our federal government, its unlikely that the people who hatched this rotten egg (the "Stimulus package") have any idea about its true impact on the economy in the real world outside Washington DC, or, in the case of wind energy, how little electricity is produced by "wind farms," or how much tax burden they are shifting from "wind farm" owning corporations (many foreign owned) to ordinary US taxpayers, their children and grandchildren.

Glenn Schleede