President Trump Helping Our Competitors: Eco-Unfriendly Solar Panels
Source: Solaryna
So What’s the Deal?
If President Trump approves to subsidize China in solar panels- its a win for the environmentalists groups. Solar Panels appear to be a new investment trend, growth in free trade and manufacturing jobs, and renewable energy. Therefore, homeowners and businesses are jumping on the bandwagon to save some money and help the environment.
However, in September, the US International Trade Commission stated that US solar panel manufacturers are hurting because of foreign competition. Because of this, Trump considers to apply 35% tariffs on any foreign solar panels purchased by Americans.
In addition to this, President Trump seemed to pay China huge subsidies to create solar panels. They have now become our largest competitors. However, back in 2009, while Obama was in Office, Congress passed the $787 Billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. This essentially ended up not boosting U.S. solar manufacturing and paid companies to import them abroad.
Unfortunately, these foreign solar panels shown to have burned a lot of coal, created more green house gases, and taken long periods of time traveling the world to arrive in the U.S. So much for using ” this is environmentally friendly”, as your selling point. Over time, these would not be helping the environment, and America would benefit buying directly from American solar panel companies.
In addition to this, America could use of a lot more jobs. Tariffs or not – Asian labour has been loosing it’s lead in the past few years. Over time, solar panel manufacturing will end up back to the U.S.
Currently, R&D and manufacturing for solar panels are growing. Also, if you are involved advancing products like this or simply have a start up, you might be eligible to qualify for R&D Credit.
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Therefore, you may receive up to 14% on your expenses. To find out more, please contact a Swanson Reed R&D Specialist today.
Swanson Reed regularly hosts free webinars and provides free IRS CE credits as well as CPE credits for CPA’s. For more information please visit us at www.swansonreed.com/webinars or contact your usual Swanson Reed representative.
