What's the best deal Residential or Commercial TAX credits?

meridiansolar

I could install solar panels on my own home or on a rental unit. If I do my home I would get the 30% fed rebate and some state rebates.

Would it be better to install them on my rental property so I could get the 30% federal tax credit and depreciate them over time? Has anyone done this? How many years does the depreciation go for?

Seems like depreciating them is a much better deal.

Thoughts?

BB.

Re: What's the best deal Residential or Commercial TAX credits?

I am no tax guy--But you will need to figure out how you will be billed/billing for the use of the array on the rental property.

In California, commercial properties (as opposed to homes/apartments) have a much different tariff schedule--and can be very complex and sometimes difficult to have significant savings when using GT solar.

If your rental is a home/apartment--How will you get the "benefits" of the GT generated power? Will this be the "house meter" (not much power used?) or the tenant's meter(s) and how will that savings be shared/owned by you?

-Bill

meridiansolar

Re: What's the best deal Residential or Commercial TAX credits?

The rental has a flat rate for utilities. I pay the electric bill. Tenants therefore abuse the electricity and use wayyy more than they would if they paid directly. It is a split home so I can't change that short of spending thousands to rewire it and add a meter.

BB.

Re: What's the best deal Residential or Commercial TAX credits?

If the home will be maintained with a rental unit--You might still want to think about adding a meter... In California, we have tiered rates and it can be much cheaper to have two meters with two units just on power costs alone.

Also, your tenants will probably never conserve power if they do not pay for it...

And if you can deduct the solar from business expenses, you should be able to deduct adding a meter for the rental unit too.

My concern about doing solar for your home/rental is that, from what I understand, they will want you to "prove" the percent shared of the GT System cost between home and rental. And without any sort of metering, you will be left with square footage or some other defensible assignment of costs/value--which would limit the amount of depreciation you can take anyway.

Plus--it might open you to an audit with its unknowns too (isn't the home office deduction a big issues with the IRS?).

-Bill

Urbandialect

Re: What's the best deal Residential or Commercial TAX credits?

trying to get back Tax credits ay? Good luck, this is the dark side of the solar industry. Please keep us updated w/your progress in getting back tax credits, i'm very interested to see how this goes for you.