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Green energy is having its moment. Electric cars now represent 15% of all passenger vehicles on the road. Almost half of all new homes in the United States have solar panels. And Congress has decided to go all in to incentivize starting solar businesses. As a result of that new focus in Washington, buying renewable energy projects has become increasingly attractive for investors — both socially and, as a result of government incentives and smart legal structuring, financially. We’ve explained one such legal structure — the Investment Tax Credit program that was part of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Here, we’ll explore an extension of that strategy and an opportunity for individuals to multiply their tax benefits and significantly increase their returns: the solar flip partnership.
A flip partnership is a structure that allows individuals to receive a greater share of the tax credits and depreciation associated with a specific project. The key mechanism is that by borrowing, the individual can increase the amount of cash in the project and, as a result, the tax credits and depreciation available.
The partnership is typically structured with three partners: a sponsor (the developer), an individual (you), and a bank that provides a loan. The sponsor partner is responsible for developing and operating the renewable energy project, the individual partner provides funding for the project, and the bank provides debt financing that increases the total amount in the project and the tax credits and depreciation available to you.
The flip partnership structure works by allocating most of the tax credits and depreciation — typically 99% of the tax benefits — to the individual partner in the early years of the project’s life. This can be particularly advantageous for the individual, as he or she can use these tax benefits to offset taxable income. In return for these supercharged upfront tax benefits, the sponsor partner receives the majority of the cash flow from the project over its lifetime.
Due to the rules regarding leveraged solar projects, the individual has access to uncapped tax credits and depreciation. Accordingly, flip partnership solar project purchases are for individuals and families aiming to offset more than $600,000 in income taxes. In addition, due to active-participation requirements, interested parties have to be willing to actively participate in the project (via site visits, continuing education, and the like).
Let’s take a look at an example. Imagine the following allocation of cash put into a qualified solar project:
In a traditional solar partnership structure, the tax benefits and revenue would be split between the two equity partners according to their respective contributions. So if the individual put in $10 million and the sponsor put in $5 million, the individual would receive two-thirds of the tax benefits and revenue stream.
In a flip partnership structure, by contrast, those benefits are allocated almost exclusively to the individual partner in the early years of the project’s life and, in exchange, the sponsor takes the revenue stream in later years. The typical schedule is the following:
This arrangement takes advantage of the particular structure of these projects’ tax benefits to supercharge the returns for the individual. For example, using the schedule outlined above, the individual would receive up to 99% of the tax benefits for the entire $30 million project. This would mean credits and depreciation against $29.97 million of the solar purchase, even though the individual only committed $10 million. The result would be potentially more than $15 million of tax savings, or more than 150% of the initial $10 million investment.
The sponsor and the banking partner receive almost all of the project’s income upfront and have a right to buy the individual out after five years. But that’s a small price to pay for total tax benefits that are multiples of the initial purchase amount.
There are two main tradeoffs — one risk and one constraint — associated with a solar flip partnership:
So, how can you go about starting a solar business? It’s relatively simple: Valur has partnered with nationally recognized accounting and firms to facilitate buying solar projects. We will help you identify the opportunity and choose between different solar opportunities, visualize the potential benefits, and calculate how much you need to put in to capture the right sized tax credits. From there, we and our partners will help you finalize your purchase and keep track of the relevant data for ongoing tax purposes.
If you have any accounting questions, we have put together an overview of the most common technical questions accountants have. You can read that here.
Flip partnerships can be an attractive option for individuals looking to participate in renewable energy projects purchases. With same tax benefits as ordinary solar investments, but uncapped, investors can potentially see a higher returns while contributing to a cleaner and more sustainable future.
We’ve built a platform to give everyone access to the tax and wealth-building tools typically reserved for wealthy individuals with a team of accountants and lawyers. We make it simple and seamless for our customers to take advantage of these hard-to-access tax-advantaged structures. With Valur, you can build your wealth more efficiently at less than half the cost of competitors.
From picking the best strategy to taking care of all the setup and ongoing overhead, we make things simple. The results are real: We have helped create more than $3 billion in additional wealth for our customers. If you would like to learn more, please feel free to explore our Learning Center. You can also see your potential tax savings with our online calculators or schedule a time to chat with us!
