Word: taxed
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That's what WPS Resources did in 2001. WPS bought a synfuel facility near Tuscaloosa, Ala., and moved it near a coal mine in Hopkins County, Ky. Naturally, the plant lost money. But it generated such bountiful tax breaks that before long, WPS could no longer take full advantage of the credit because it lacked sufficient income. In 2001 and 2002, for example, WPS claimed a total of $45 million in credits...
...Larry Weyers put it in remarks to shareholders: "What we've discovered is that the operation has tax-credit potential that exceeds our needs." In other words, the company had more credits it could use than taxes owed. So WPS did what other synfuel owners do in similar situations. It sold a portion of its operation to a third party for $40 million while benefitting from the leftover credit. The only losers were American taxpayers...
...there's always the possibility that Congress will extend it. On four different occasions friendly lawmakers have intervened to rescue itlawmakers like Orrin Hatch, the Republican Senator from Utah, where Headwaters is based. A longtime champion of the credit, Hatch told colleagues in 1998, "This is a very important tax credit for alternative fuels. It is an issue of fairness, not one of corporate welfare...
...synthetic-fuel industry is unlike any other business model: it doesn't make a profit and never will. The cost of treating the coal makes synfuel more expensive than conventional coal. Thus this new generation of synfuel plants makes no economic sense. Their only allure is the tax credit. To be sure, those who benefit from the tax credit dispute the notion that it is a windfall. They claim that it has increased the supply of low-cost coal, lowered electricity prices, improved the efficiency of coal-fired generators and been environmentally friendly. What's more, according to the Council...
Beyond the drain on the treasury, the credit has destabilized coal markets because synfuel producers periodically undercut conventional coal producers in this country and abroad, which they can afford to do because of their tax credits. Coal associations in Canada and Australia have complained that the tax credit is nothing less than a government subsidy interfering with the free market...