Taking advantage of solar tax incentives and gifting to Charitable Lead Annuity Trusts (CLATs) are two popular strategies for offsetting ordinary income tax. How do you know which one is right for you? This article explains what these strategies are and when they make sense.

Key Highlights and Takeaways

• Two Ordinary Income Tax Strategies: Both strategies offset ordinary income tax at least to some extent.
• Solar Tax Incentives Yield Significant Tax Savings: The federal and state governments offer significant tax benefits to people who purchase solar projects. It’s possible to receive more than a dollar in a tax benefits for every dollar of solar assets you purchase. Solar projects also generate income.
• CLATs Yield Smaller Tax Savings with Potential Upside: When a donor contributes to a conventional charity, he or she receives a charitable deduction, typically equal to the fair market value of the amount contributed. But with a CLAT, a donor can also realize a future return for either themselves or their loved ones.

What are Solar Tax Incentives?

Solar tax incentives are tax incentives that are designed to encourage renewable energy production. The current system was created by the Inflation Reduction Act, passed in 2022. There are two basic types of solar tax incentives: tax credits and depreciation.

How Do Solar Investment Tax Credits Work?

The federal government provides Solar Investment Tax Credits (ITCs) equal to 30-70% of the cost of installation for any eligible project. These tax credits are some of the most valuable tax benefits available in any context, because they directly reduce income tax liability, not just a taxpayer’s taxable income. So, for example, if you put $100 into a solar project that qualifies for a tax credit equal to 40% of the amount contributed, you’ll receive $40 back from the government ($100 x 0.40).

How Does Depreciation Work?

The federal government, and most states, also provide generous depreciation deductions. While not as valuable as tax credits, depreciation is still quite valuable. For example, assume your federal marginal income tax rate is 37%, your state marginal income tax rate is 10%, and you purchase $100 of eligible solar projects that qualify for 40% ITCs. You will be able to depreciate the full $100 for state tax purposes. You will be able to depreciate only $80 for federal purposes because your federal depreciation basis will be reduced by one-half of the $40 of ITCs. As a result, you will save ~$40 from depreciation: $10 of state tax ($100 x 0.10) and about $30 of federal tax ($80 x 0.37). That’s on top of any savings from the solar tax credits themselves. You can estimate your potential returns here!

Benefits of Solar Tax Incentives:

1. Substantial Tax Savings: Allocating money to solar energy projects reduces a taxpayer’s federal and state tax liability. The cumulative tax benefits can approach — and, in some cases, exceed — 100% of the amount contributed, meaning you can actually make a profit from the tax benefits alone.
2. Income: These projects sell electricity, typically generating 3-7% of a project’s value each year in revenue. The income from the projects is distributed to the owners.
3. Environmental Impact: Renewable energy, including solar energy, reduces carbon emissions. Many people put money into these projects in part for environmental reasons.

Drawbacks of Solar Tax Incentives:

1. Material Participation: To use solar tax credits and depreciation to offset your ordinary income, you need to materially participate in the renewable energy space. That’s why it’s necessary to set up a small solar business in order to qualify for the credits. This entails creating an LLC and spending 100+ hours per year running the business. The IRS hasn’t provided specifics on what activities count toward the hours requirement. What we do know is that a taxpayer must engage in regular, continuous, and substantial activities that will benefit his or her solar business. We also know what activities other solar business owners have spent time on and what has passed IRS audits.
2. Developer/Project Risk: The tax benefits hinge on the project being completed in the tax year you are looking to offset ordinary income and on the project generating energy for five years.

What are Charitable Lead Annuity Trusts?

A Charitable Lead Annuity Trust (CLAT) is an irrevocable trust designed to provide annual distributions to a charity for a specified period, after which the remaining assets are distributed to non-charitable beneficiaries, typically family members but sometimes the donors themselves. In most cases, the CLAT is structured so that the taxpayer receives a charitable deduction equal to the value he or she contributes to the trust. In this way, gifting to a CLAT is similar to gifting to a conventional charitable vehicle, like a Donor Advised Fund. The difference is that, with a CLAT, the donor or his or her family can keep the charitable vehicle’s investment returns to the extent they exceed the IRS hurdle rate, which is typically 2-5% per year. If you contribute $1 million to a CLAT and the CLAT generates 10% annual returns, you may be able to not only claim a $1 million deduction upfront but also walk away with a six-figure or even seven-figure remainder interest at the end of the term.

Factors that Influence the Desirability of a CLAT

CLATs tend to work best if some combination of these factors are true:

Benefits of CLATs:

Drawbacks of CLATs:

What is an Ideal Use Case?

Benjamin, a married California resident, earns $1,200,000 per year. Because his annual tax bill is $550,000, Benjamin is focused on tax mitigation. Benjamin is charitable; going forward, he hopes to give $120,000 a year to his religious institution. He could give away $120,000 outright each year. Or, he could set up a CLAT in a year when he has a particularly high income, and then use the resulting charitable deduction to offset a substantial chunk of his income in that year while also setting up a $120,000 annual income stream for charity. In this way, he’ll be able to accelerate his charitable deductions while also potentially keeping a portion of the excess returns on the amount that puts into the CLAT. Compared to some other tax-mitigation strategies, CLATs tend to have a lower ROI because the donor is giving away a chunk of his or her assets. But they have a higher ROI than simply gifting to a Donor Advised Fund or most other charitable vehicles, so they make a lot of sense for people who are charitably inclined. You can estimate your potential returns here!

Why Choose One Strategy or the Other?

Taking advantage of solar tax incentives and setting up a CLAT accomplish different things. Solar tax incentives are heavily tax advantaged but make less sense for people who are focused on charitable giving. CLATs are somewhat less tax advantaged but provide substantial, ongoing support for charity. When choosing between these two strategies, the key question is: What are you trying to accomplish? If your goal is primarily to support charity while providing some additional upside for you or your family members, then a CLAT may make sense. If your goal is simply to maximize tax savings, then solar tax incentives are probably a better fit.

Conclusion

Taking advantage of solar tax incentives and gifting to a CLAT are both viable tax strategies, but they serve different objectives. Hopefully this article has given you a better idea of what each strategy entails, and whether one or the other might be a better fit.

About Valur

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!