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Comment by giblfiz | Hacker News Reader

I'm the original author. I'm not sure why you got down-voted for this, this was absolutely a "tax dodge". The polite term is "tax mitigation strategy", I'm also not sure why this is seen as an openly negative thing? The government wants a type of thing done, they say "hey, we won't pay people directly to do it, but we will subsidize it thru tax incentives"

I was like "yeah, I like that thing (solar) and think it's good for the world, I will do it in return for tax incentives"

Why exactly is that bad?

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because there's not necessarily a demand for this site, or even a personal interest — imo this sort of incentive produces worse outcomes than taxing people and farming it out to the lowest bidder, at least the lowest bidder has a business and reputation to maintain (thin, but not nothing)

Idk, there's a certain double standard that I see semi-frequently. Direct subsidies and/or rebates to incentivize renewable energy? Good. Tax subsidies to do the exact same thing? Awful, terrible, tax avoiding scum.

Sometimes I wonder if any of the people who complain about this bought an electric car or roof solar with tax credits or rebates.

Or maybe its just HN anti-crypto bias.

> Why exactly is that bad?

Because you could have just paid your taxes like the rest of us have to. Instead you made a big drama and are asking us to agree with you how unfair it all is that you have to pay taxes.

What a nonsense. This is the government itself proposing the subsidie to build up long term renewables, which have a much more important role to local communities. Author then writes about their important experiences, listing important lessons and insights for future endeavours, and you call it a ‘drama’.

Tell me about your intentions without telling me about your intentions.

Yup, sorry, I believe in big government.

I think paying taxes allows the government to be able to afford to do the things it is responsible for (health, security, prosperity, equality).

If an infrastructure project is only possible with government support (in this case subsidies), then let the government make it happen and let the population benefit from it. For example the Apollo program.

If a solar farm is not possible to do in the free market without subsidies, then DON'T DO IT until the market is right. (Anyway, what was the author's plan if he got deep into the project and instead of having a disappointment from connection fees, the new president cuts the subsides he needed? Subsidies are political and temporary, you cannot build a sustainable business on them.)

Pay your taxes, and contribute to building society. It's as simple as that.

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