- The Senate Finance Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee have launched a formal investigation into whether solar energy companies improperly received billions of dollars in tax incentives from the Obama administration.
- The committees sent letters to three companies in the residential solar industry - SolarCity (SCTY), Sunrun (NASDAQ:RUN) and Sungevity - and four solar utility firms - SunEdison (OTCPK:SUNEQ), Abengoa (ABGB), NextEra Energy (NYSE:NEE) and NRG Energy (NYSE:NRG).
- At issue is a Treasury Department policy that gives solar firms a 30% investment tax credit on the cost of acquiring a system, but solar energy developers do not always have the income to use the credits or the funds to buy and install solar energy systems, so they routinely enlist big investors and transfer the tax benefits.