Today, more than 200 companies in the U.S. wind supply chain delivered a letter to leaders of the tax reform effort in the U.S. House of Representatives to ask them to honor the existing phase-out of the wind energy production tax credit (PTC) and investment tax credit (ITC).
The letter asks the House to amend H.R.1, their proposed GOP tax reform bill, to honor the 2015 bipartisan agreement to phase out the wind PTC and ITC from 2015 through 2019. The letter is copied to leaders of the Senate tax reform effort, who the wind businesses say are honoring the deal in their proposed bill.
“Wind energy went first on tax reform, voluntarily agreeing to a phase-out to give the industry time to adjust,” says Tom Kiernan, CEO of AWEA. “We support the goal of making America a better place to do business, and this retroactive rule change runs counter to that. Every day that goes by until this flawed House language is fixed reduces business for American workers and factories.”
According to AWEA’s estimates, the House version of tax reform so far could threaten 60,000 American jobs and $50 billion in private investment, nearly all of it in rural areas. The Senate version, in contrast, would leave intact the orderly phase-out of the wind tax credit, assuring stability for workers, says the group.
Last week, 15 members of the House, led by U.S. Rep. David Young, R-Iowa, also delivered a letter urging their colleagues to return to the existing rules.
“Businesses can’t go back in time to qualify for financing under the new rules,” Kiernan adds. “So under the House version, they would either suffer a retroactive tax hike or be forced to walk away and break contracts for manufacturing and construction work that thousands of American workers are counting on.”
