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Solar-powered UK schools face an 800% tax increase

37 points by petewailes 10y ago

jlebrech 10y ago
couldn't they say they no longer use them and disconnect them when someone comes to check? (this is how people get around paying their TV licence in the uk) What I also don't get is that they are taxing state schools, it's like taking one's wallet from the right pocket and putting it in the left pocket.
- pricechild 10y ago
  Surely nobody really gets away with that tactic? It won't fool the detector vans?
  - lawless123 10y ago
    >It won't fool the detector vans? Does anyone actually believe that? :-)
  - lorenzhs 10y ago
    Detector vans are mostly a hoax. It's thought that they worked by detecting electromagnetic radiation given off by CRTs, if they worked at all. Those are obsolete, so the point is moot anyway. But how should they be able to tell apart a TV and a computer monitor? Furthermore, you can use a TV and not connect it to an antenna—Smart TVs and Chromecast/Roku/Fire TV/Apple TV/... make that a perfectly viable use case. Such use isn't subject to TV licencing in the UK, only watching live broadcasts (including streaming) is.
    - aninhumer 10y ago
      >only watching live broadcasts (including streaming) is. Also using BBC iPlayer even for non-live content now requires a TV licence.
      - lorenzhs 10y ago
        Apparently this changed in September 2016. Previously, watching non-live content didn't require a TV licence.
  - jlebrech 10y ago
    detector vans are a lie, especially now there are no CRT tvs. the "vans" they did use could detect the radiation coming out of the tv that matched the tv signal they were watching. also useless for blocks of flats.
- doctor_fact 10y ago
  The ROI of them installing them is based on FIT payments from the grid at above market rate (the rates are indexed to inflation, but depend on when your installation was certified). Disconnecting would therefore be a bad idea - FIT rates for new installs have plummeted.
- klez 10y ago
  > couldn't they say they no longer use them and disconnect them when someone comes to check? I would (naively, perhaps) think it's better to try and change the system than to game it.
jankotek 10y ago
Link does not provide much information, here are more details: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/mar/06/solar-powered-schools-bill-business-rates-rise-england-wales https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/mar/06/solar-po... > The Valuation Office Agency said last year that small non-domestic solar installations would no longer be exempt from rates and bigger solar systems already subjected to business rates would see a hike of 600-800%. > Solar-equipped private schools will duck the changes because of their charitable status. I think it is a sign that solar electricity has matured, does not need subsidies, and can stand on its own (and be taxed the same way as other industries).
- jackmott 10y ago
  The fossil fuel industries in most countries have an extremely complex set of tax breaks and subsidies of their own. So should solar also have that?
  - jankotek 10y ago
    I do not want to go into this discussion, but I doubt school would get any subsidies for a coal plant. By other industries I meant everything (manufacturing, IT, agriculture...), not just electricity.
    - ZeroGravitas 10y ago
      But when evaluating whether to buy solar panels, they'd measure against the price of electricity sold by subsidiized coal plants, so thoses subsizidies would harm solar uptake. I'm not sure this applies in the UK though, despite swinging rightward there's a reasonable range of regulations that are basically putting coal out of business anyway.
    - pjc50 10y ago
      If you installed a coal CHP plant in a school, you would get a rates exemption for it: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/combined-heat-and-power-incentives https://www.gov.uk/guidance/combined-heat-and-power-incentiv... (even more crazy were the subsidies for renewable heat in Northern Ireland, which ended up bringing down the Stormont government: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-38307628 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-38307628 )
huffmsa 10y ago
Oh, it's £1.2m COMBINED in new taxes. I thought it was a per school rate. Nonetheless, not great and an odd move
- TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
  The Tories are basically kooks. I'm sorry I can't offer a more intelligent analysis, but there doesn't seem to be one to offer. Economically, politically, socially, and scientifically - they're a greed-driven kookocracy.
stefek99 10y ago
I don't get the solar business in the UK. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_irradiance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_irradiance $1000 worth of raw materials (photovoltaic cells) would be much better used in countries like Syria. In Winter there is not much Sun / daylight hours, and the energy usage is higher due to heating and lightning so other electricity production methods need to provide 100% of the demand anyway. installation slowed by 85 percent caused by the end of subsidies for solar farms and and incentives for homeowners It's even more outrageous after considering - homeowners are on richer than people who are renting. Giving taxpayers money to... (I could never understood solar business in the the UK and rapid decline after subsidies has ended only proves the point) Next time similar opportunity arise - I'll raise the money and hop on the bandwagon... :)
- crdoconnor 10y ago
  "It's even more outrageous after considering - homeowners are on richer than people who are renting." This is one of the more sickening, cynical arguments I've heard passed down from think tanks on to the public (and I'm a renter not a 'rich' homeowner). This is just leveraging the jealousy of the home owner "haves" with the home have nots in order to artificially pump the profits of heavily polluting companies and give even more money to people with enormous stock portfolios who are not just relatively wealthy, but spectacularly obscenely wealthy. Moreover, it does nothing to actually help the "have nots" and it's a HUGE fuck you to the idea that we should actually be doing something about global warming. Even when green energy can stand on its own two feet without subsidies/tax-breaks-relative-to-coal it should get them because polluter should have to pay for negative externalities. Instead, tax breaks are being dropped, the EU is slapping TARIFFS on solar panels (I guess the "free market" was only a good idea when it helped coal and oil companies?) and in my constituency they killed a wind farm because even though it wouldn't have spoiled the view or affected tourism, the Tories said it would spoil tourism.
  - Shivetya 10y ago
    well it also totally disregards the people who do not want to own a home.
briandear 10y ago
A loss of a subsidy is a tax hike? Seems like that terminology is misleading while technically correct. If solar is so efficient why would it need a subsidy; wouldn't the market make it more desirable? If it isn't so efficient, then why subsidize it? It seems like the people that want solar should pay what it costs.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
macu 10y ago
How can they tax sun collection, that is sickening.
- tsmarsh 10y ago
  Wouldn't be the first time: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Window_tax https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Window_tax
nicky0 10y ago
Wait a minute, schools pay tax??
andrewmu 10y ago
One of the further absurdities is that the tax applies to state schools but not private fee-paying schools.
pjc50 10y ago
The whole thing is bonkers. A more detailed briefing on exactly what the change is: http://www.solar-trade.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Stakeholder-briefing-business-rates-rooftop-solar-v0.8.pdf http://www.solar-trade.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Sta... The UK does not have property tax per se, it has "business rates" which are collected by the local authority. State schools are considered to be "businesses" (WTF#1), while private schools which are nearly always structured as "charities" do not have to pay rates (WTF#2). Business rates are calculated based on the value of the building + fixed equipment (plant). This change counts solar panels producing energy used predominantly on the premises as "plant" and imposes a requirement to pay tax based on their capital value. (WTF#3). This does not apply to sites generating primarily for export (WTF#4). It's unnecessarily penalising schools who bought panels in the hope that they could use the future guaranteed subsidies as income. But that's about what you'd expect from a Conservative government. (Definition of "plant": http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2000/540/pdfs/uksi_20000540_en.pdf http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2000/540/pdfs/uksi_200005... ) (The whole thing brings up an unforseen disadvantage of trying to do renewables through a "distorted free market" rather than just direct state action: people taking advantage of the subsidies are called "gaming the system", when the entire point of the subsidy policy was to pay them to do exactly that. Also, UK local government and schools funding is a collection of fudges to outdated systems, but nobody wants to go near that mess.)
transfire 10y ago
Trick of the oil lobby. First you give subsidies, then take them away in one fell swoop. It's very bad for the industry. They pulled the same crap in Nevada.

37 points by petewailes 10y ago

couldn't they say they no longer use them and disconnect them when someone comes to check? (this is how people get around paying their TV licence in the uk) What I also don't get is that they are taxing state schools, it's like taking one's wallet from the right pocket and putting it in the left pocket.

pricechild 10y ago
Surely nobody really gets away with that tactic? It won't fool the detector vans?
- lawless123 10y ago
  >It won't fool the detector vans? Does anyone actually believe that? :-)
- lorenzhs 10y ago
  Detector vans are mostly a hoax. It's thought that they worked by detecting electromagnetic radiation given off by CRTs, if they worked at all. Those are obsolete, so the point is moot anyway. But how should they be able to tell apart a TV and a computer monitor? Furthermore, you can use a TV and not connect it to an antenna—Smart TVs and Chromecast/Roku/Fire TV/Apple TV/... make that a perfectly viable use case. Such use isn't subject to TV licencing in the UK, only watching live broadcasts (including streaming) is.
  - aninhumer 10y ago
    >only watching live broadcasts (including streaming) is. Also using BBC iPlayer even for non-live content now requires a TV licence.
    - lorenzhs 10y ago
      Apparently this changed in September 2016. Previously, watching non-live content didn't require a TV licence.
- jlebrech 10y ago
  detector vans are a lie, especially now there are no CRT tvs. the "vans" they did use could detect the radiation coming out of the tv that matched the tv signal they were watching. also useless for blocks of flats.
doctor_fact 10y ago
The ROI of them installing them is based on FIT payments from the grid at above market rate (the rates are indexed to inflation, but depend on when your installation was certified). Disconnecting would therefore be a bad idea - FIT rates for new installs have plummeted.
klez 10y ago
> couldn't they say they no longer use them and disconnect them when someone comes to check? I would (naively, perhaps) think it's better to try and change the system than to game it.

jankotek 10y ago

Link does not provide much information, here are more details: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/mar/06/solar-powered-schools-bill-business-rates-rise-england-wales https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/mar/06/solar-po... > The Valuation Office Agency said last year that small non-domestic solar installations would no longer be exempt from rates and bigger solar systems already subjected to business rates would see a hike of 600-800%. > Solar-equipped private schools will duck the changes because of their charitable status. I think it is a sign that solar electricity has matured, does not need subsidies, and can stand on its own (and be taxed the same way as other industries).

jackmott 10y ago
The fossil fuel industries in most countries have an extremely complex set of tax breaks and subsidies of their own. So should solar also have that?
- jankotek 10y ago
  I do not want to go into this discussion, but I doubt school would get any subsidies for a coal plant. By other industries I meant everything (manufacturing, IT, agriculture...), not just electricity.
  - ZeroGravitas 10y ago
    But when evaluating whether to buy solar panels, they'd measure against the price of electricity sold by subsidiized coal plants, so thoses subsizidies would harm solar uptake. I'm not sure this applies in the UK though, despite swinging rightward there's a reasonable range of regulations that are basically putting coal out of business anyway.
  - pjc50 10y ago
    If you installed a coal CHP plant in a school, you would get a rates exemption for it: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/combined-heat-and-power-incentives https://www.gov.uk/guidance/combined-heat-and-power-incentiv... (even more crazy were the subsidies for renewable heat in Northern Ireland, which ended up bringing down the Stormont government: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-38307628 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-38307628 )

huffmsa 10y ago

Oh, it's £1.2m COMBINED in new taxes. I thought it was a per school rate. Nonetheless, not great and an odd move

TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
The Tories are basically kooks. I'm sorry I can't offer a more intelligent analysis, but there doesn't seem to be one to offer. Economically, politically, socially, and scientifically - they're a greed-driven kookocracy.

stefek99 10y ago

I don't get the solar business in the UK. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_irradiance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_irradiance $1000 worth of raw materials (photovoltaic cells) would be much better used in countries like Syria. In Winter there is not much Sun / daylight hours, and the energy usage is higher due to heating and lightning so other electricity production methods need to provide 100% of the demand anyway. installation slowed by 85 percent caused by the end of subsidies for solar farms and and incentives for homeowners It's even more outrageous after considering - homeowners are on richer than people who are renting. Giving taxpayers money to... (I could never understood solar business in the the UK and rapid decline after subsidies has ended only proves the point) Next time similar opportunity arise - I'll raise the money and hop on the bandwagon... :)

crdoconnor 10y ago
"It's even more outrageous after considering - homeowners are on richer than people who are renting." This is one of the more sickening, cynical arguments I've heard passed down from think tanks on to the public (and I'm a renter not a 'rich' homeowner). This is just leveraging the jealousy of the home owner "haves" with the home have nots in order to artificially pump the profits of heavily polluting companies and give even more money to people with enormous stock portfolios who are not just relatively wealthy, but spectacularly obscenely wealthy. Moreover, it does nothing to actually help the "have nots" and it's a HUGE fuck you to the idea that we should actually be doing something about global warming. Even when green energy can stand on its own two feet without subsidies/tax-breaks-relative-to-coal it should get them because polluter should have to pay for negative externalities. Instead, tax breaks are being dropped, the EU is slapping TARIFFS on solar panels (I guess the "free market" was only a good idea when it helped coal and oil companies?) and in my constituency they killed a wind farm because even though it wouldn't have spoiled the view or affected tourism, the Tories said it would spoil tourism.
- Shivetya 10y ago
  well it also totally disregards the people who do not want to own a home.

briandear 10y ago

A loss of a subsidy is a tax hike? Seems like that terminology is misleading while technically correct. If solar is so efficient why would it need a subsidy; wouldn't the market make it more desirable? If it isn't so efficient, then why subsidize it? It seems like the people that want solar should pay what it costs.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

macu 10y ago

How can they tax sun collection, that is sickening.

tsmarsh 10y ago
Wouldn't be the first time: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Window_tax https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Window_tax

nicky0 10y ago

Wait a minute, schools pay tax??

andrewmu 10y ago

One of the further absurdities is that the tax applies to state schools but not private fee-paying schools.

pjc50 10y ago

The whole thing is bonkers. A more detailed briefing on exactly what the change is: http://www.solar-trade.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Stakeholder-briefing-business-rates-rooftop-solar-v0.8.pdf http://www.solar-trade.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Sta... The UK does not have property tax per se, it has "business rates" which are collected by the local authority. State schools are considered to be "businesses" (WTF#1), while private schools which are nearly always structured as "charities" do not have to pay rates (WTF#2). Business rates are calculated based on the value of the building + fixed equipment (plant). This change counts solar panels producing energy used predominantly on the premises as "plant" and imposes a requirement to pay tax based on their capital value. (WTF#3). This does not apply to sites generating primarily for export (WTF#4). It's unnecessarily penalising schools who bought panels in the hope that they could use the future guaranteed subsidies as income. But that's about what you'd expect from a Conservative government. (Definition of "plant": http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2000/540/pdfs/uksi_20000540_en.pdf http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2000/540/pdfs/uksi_200005... ) (The whole thing brings up an unforseen disadvantage of trying to do renewables through a "distorted free market" rather than just direct state action: people taking advantage of the subsidies are called "gaming the system", when the entire point of the subsidy policy was to pay them to do exactly that. Also, UK local government and schools funding is a collection of fudges to outdated systems, but nobody wants to go near that mess.)

transfire 10y ago

Trick of the oil lobby. First you give subsidies, then take them away in one fell swoop. It's very bad for the industry. They pulled the same crap in Nevada.