Turn Clean Energy Investment Into Tax Value

The Opportunity

Clean Energy Incentives Can Change the Economics of a Project

Federal and State incentives may be available for qualifying clean energy investments, including certain electricity-generating facilities, energy storage, and related projects.

Depending on the project and applicable rules, tax benefits may be affected by construction timing, project location, labor requirements, domestic content, technology, ownership structure, and other factors.

Certain credits may also be transferable, creating another way to realize value when the project owner cannot efficiently use the entire credit directly.

The Problem

Qualification Depends on More Than the Equipment

Clean energy incentives can involve more than purchasing and installing qualifying equipment. Project costs, contracts, labor, construction dates, vendors, materials, locations, placed-in-service dates, and supporting documentation may all affect the analysis.

When that information is spread among accounting records, construction files, invoices, payroll systems, contractors, and project-management applications, supporting an incentive can become unnecessarily difficult.

What Good Looks Like

Build Tax Incentive Support Into Project Accounting

A well-designed process starts by identifying the potential tax incentives while the project is being planned or completed.

Accounting and project systems can then be configured to organize qualifying project costs and retain the information needed to support the applicable Federal and State incentive analysis.

The result is better information for management, the specialty tax team, the company's CPA, and other professionals involved in evaluating or claiming the benefits.

• Identify potential Federal and State clean energy incentives.
• Determine the project information and documentation that should be retained.
• Configure accounting and project systems to capture qualifying costs.
• Connect project, vendor, construction, payroll, and financial information.
• Generate supporting reports from the company's accounting environment.
• Coordinate specialty tax, engineering, and filing requirements when needed.

Make the System Serve the Project

The Information May Already Be There

Your accounting system, construction records, purchasing information, payroll, project-management software, and vendor documentation may already contain much of the information required to support available incentives.

The objective is not to create an entirely separate administrative process for the tax credit.

The objective is to make the accounting, project information, documentation, and specialty tax work function as one coordinated process.

Existing Projects

Projects Already Completed May Be Worth Reviewing

Companies and property owners that have completed clean energy investments may have projects that warrant review for Federal or State incentives that were not previously identified or fully evaluated.

Eligibility depends on the specific project, technology, dates, expenditures, and applicable tax rules, but existing accounting and project records can provide the starting point for that analysis.