A new government watchdog report found that the Internal Revenue service has handed out billions of dollars to support green energy projects, and then failed to mention how the money was spent on building new power generation.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) reports that IRS tax subsidies to green energy operators “accounted for an estimated $13.7 billion in forgone revenue to the federal government for renewable projects and $1.4 billion for traditional projects” between 2004 and 2013.
That’s a lot of money, but the IRS can’t (or won’t) tell government auditors how much green energy generating capacity their tax subsidies are supporting. The GAO says the IRS “is not required to collect project level data from all taxpayers” who claim an Investment Tax Credit (ITC) or Production Tax Credit (PTC).
“IRS officials stated that IRS is unlikely to collect additional data on these tax credits unless it is directed to do so,” the GAO reported. “Since 1994, GAO has encouraged greater scrutiny of tax expenditures, including data collection. Without project-level data on the ITC and PTC, Congress cannot evaluate their effectiveness as it considers whether to reauthorize or extend them.”
No comments:
Post a Comment