> Why is that an important distinction here? Both direct subsidies and tax credits/rebates/write-offs have the same net effect on the government's coffers. It

> Why is that an important distinction here? Both direct subsidies and tax credits/rebates/write-offs have the same net effect on the government's coffers. It has a different effect on the entity being taxed. A tax write-off increases the rewards for an already profitable proposition, but tax write-off don't normally incentivise someone to do something that is a loss (unless the write-off is transferrable to other profits, but that's a separate question). Subsidies, however, can make a loss into a profit, incentivising people to do it. That's exactly the point of the original solar subsidies. Now that the solar industry appears to be relatively well bootstrapped, it's not unreasonable to remove the straight subsidies. I think solar still enjoys many if not all of the same tax write-offs as other energy sources.