[bri3k]

Don't forget in the middle he states that this is a tax dodge on capital gains from said crypto money.

[giblfiz]

I'm the original author. I'm not sure why you got down-voted for this, this was absolutely a "tax dodge". The polite term is "tax mitigation strategy", I'm also not sure why this is seen as an openly negative thing? The government wants a type of thing done, they say "hey, we won't pay people directly to do it, but we will subsidize it thru tax incentives"

I was like "yeah, I like that thing (solar) and think it's good for the world, I will do it in return for tax incentives"

Why exactly is that bad?

[micromacrofoot]

because there's not necessarily a demand for this site, or even a personal interest — imo this sort of incentive produces worse outcomes than taxing people and farming it out to the lowest bidder, at least the lowest bidder has a business and reputation to maintain (thin, but not nothing)

[xboxnolifes]

Idk, there's a certain double standard that I see semi-frequently. Direct subsidies and/or rebates to incentivize renewable energy? Good. Tax subsidies to do the exact same thing? Awful, terrible, tax avoiding scum.

Sometimes I wonder if any of the people who complain about this bought an electric car or roof solar with tax credits or rebates.

Or maybe its just HN anti-crypto bias.

[jeffrallen]

> Why exactly is that bad?

Because you could have just paid your taxes like the rest of us have to. Instead you made a big drama and are asking us to agree with you how unfair it all is that you have to pay taxes.

[Dylan16807]

In the same way that any business expansion is a tax dodge, sure.

[chairmansteve]

Not true. If you read the article, arguably his main motivation was to avoid taxes.

Not that I blame him. The lesson is though, never do anything just to avoid taxes. He would never have got into the solar business without the tax "opportunities".

[bri3k]

He started out to find ways to lower his tax burden. Found something with solar infrastructure in a different state. Went ahead with it in spite of having no experience with the local laws or infrastructure projects and wondered why it failed?

[nine_k]

Not "a tax dodge", but "following the tax incentives".

[kortilla]

Investing money isn’t a tax dodge

[baking]

The taxes were for capital gains on his crypto assets, which is not an investment but pure speculation. The tax dodge was to find an actual investment with tax credits that would cover the capital gains on his speculation.