Lynn Bonner reports for the Charlotte Observer
The state has handed out about $1 billion in tax breaks to companies and individuals that invested in solar farms. Now the state tax collector is looking to cancel some of those breaks and collect the money.
Anxiety among tax attorneys and companies that claimed tax credits and their fight with the state Department of Revenue has been burbling for more than a year.
This month, Monarch Private Capital, a tax-credit broker based in Georgia, asked Revenue Secretary Ronald Penny to renounce the department’s position through an administrative process called a “declaratory ruling.”
Monarch Private Capital offers state and federal tax credits to companies and individuals looking to lower their tax bills.
Schorr Johnson, a spokesman for the state Department of Revenue, said in an interview last month and in emails last month and Thursday that state law prohibits the department from discussing tax audits.
“We cannot comment on ongoing audits or any potential litigation,” Johnson wrote Thursday.
The state offered a 35% tax credit to investors in renewable energy projects. The tax credit, along with other state polices encouraging renewable energy, helped make North Carolina one of the top states in the nation in solar farm capacity, The News & Observer has reported.
The renewable energy tax credit ended in 2015, but investors were given a few more years to claim the tax breaks.
Over the last nine years, the state allowed more than $1 billion in tax breaks for investments in renewable energy property, according to theDepartment of Revenue reports.
A September public notice from the tax department said some people who invested in credits through partnerships don’t qualify for tax breaks.
