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Financing company sues N.C. Revenue Department for rejecting solar tax credits

The dispute between solar energy finance companies and the state’s revenue department has reached court. Georgia-based Monarch Tax Credits filed a lawsuit Thursday, Sept. 26, in Wake County Superior Court against the N.C. Department of Revenue and its secretary, Ronald Penny. The lawsuit claims NCDOR is breaking N.C. law in rejecting state tax credits claimed...

Don Carrington
News

Protesters aren’t satisfied with Cooper’s green energy goals

Gov. Roy Cooper hadn’t finished his opening remarks at the Climate Change Interagency Council meeting before noisy protesters decried his position on the Atlantic Coast Pipeline.  State officials joined Cooper on Friday, Sept. 27 at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh for an update on the climate council’s work. They discussed the...

Lindsay Marchello
News

Insurance premiums could rise if Cooper keeps denying tax credits

North Carolina life insurance customers may pay higher premiums unless the Cooper administration reverses course on renewable-energy tax credits.  That’s what the American Council of Life Insurers said in an Aug. 28 letter to Ronald Penny, Gov. Roy Cooper’s revenue secretary. ACLI regional Vice President Curtis Leonard said the Department of Revenue’s September 2018 decision...

Don Carrington
News

McCready solar tax credits may be at risk from Cooper’s DOR

Tax credits claimed by clients of Dan McCready’s solar investment company may be jeopardized by Gov. Roy Cooper’s Department of Revenue. McCready, the Democratic nominee in the 9th Congressional District special election, started the investment firm Double Time Capital in 2013. The company set up partnerships letting investors in solar projects take advantage of a...

Don Carrington

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Financing company challenges revenue department’s tax-credit rejection

A major solar energy financing company says the N.C. Department of Revenue may be breaking the law. The company has formally asked DOR to justify a regulation rejecting state tax credits the company’s clients have claimed. The request came Aug. 1 from Monarch Tax Credits, a Georgia-based company that facilitates investments in renewable energy, historic...

Don Carrington
News

Is Cooper’s revenue department rejecting legitimate tax credits?

Gov. Roy Cooper, an advocate for renewable energy whose family leases land for solar farms, is denying tax credits for solar energy investments. Investors could lose as much as $500 million they were expecting from the state, one tax lawyer told Carolina Journal. Cooper’s Department of Revenue is basing the decision on a faulty interpretation...

Don Carrington
News

Judge Cooper’s wife now listed as manager of family’s solar property

Meredith Cooper, Gov. Roy Cooper’s sister-in-law, has been listed since April as manager of the company that owns the Cooper family’s Nash County solar farm property. That’s when Meredith filed an annual report with the N.C. Secretary of State. Meredith Cooper’s husband is Pell Cooper, a District Court judge. Pell and Roy Cooper are brothers....

Don Carrington
News

N.C. has issued more than $1 billion in renewable energy tax credits

Benefit or boondoggle? That’s the billion-dollar question. North Carolina surpassed the $1 billion mark in renewable energy investment tax credits issued in 2018 — three years after the lucrative subsidy program to stimulate solar development expired. Taxpayers have picked up the bill, and could be on the hook for hundreds of millions of more tax...

Dan Way
News

Solar energy output ratings misleading if not deceptive, critics say

In its application to build a solar facility on Gov. Roy Cooper’s Nash County property, Durham-based Strata Solar said its generating capacity would be about 5 megawatts. Enough energy to power continuously about 3,750 homes. But the plant won’t generate 5 MW of energy 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Much of the time...

Dan Way
News

Brown, others say DoD vindicates concerns about wind turbines and military operations

Sen. Harry Brown, R-Onslow, is convinced large wind energy projects, such as the Amazon Wind Farm near Elizabeth City, hinder the military’s ability to conduct low-level flight training missions in North Carolina. He also thinks construction of new wind facilities could hurt the state in a future Base Realignment and Closing process. Brown and others...

Don Carrington