Man generates his own electricity, still pays electricity taxes

[stompix]

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He needs to check the details of the law as his home still connect to the grid, which probably the main idea of the tax as the article mentioned ;
Smart meters are a bad idea for people who want the freedom to produce their own electricity without being taxed for it
Currie may have to buy some batteries to store any excess of the electricity in order to power up his home at night rather than draw electricity back out of the grid.

Of course, that would be the logical way to do things and to get rid of the evil gubbermint

But there is a small problem, checking with google solar, which approximates the numbers of hours you get enough sunlight to produce energy, it seems that the region has no more than 1500 hours of sunlight, basically 5 hours a day on average.

He has consumed 600 kwh in April, we might consider 800 during winter, that means he is taking close to 30 kwh a day from the grid.

Only this will cost him about 24k$ in powerwalls.
And with the extra solar panels he needs to load those batteries, you can pretty much understand why he hasn't done it.

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[becak mesin]

I don't think he should pay the electricity taxes because he doesn't consume it.
If he really doesn't consume it, why he should be responsible for the taxes. As a good citizen, he or she should obey the rules of government, but we do not  do that why we should responsible for that.

[St4yInTh3D4rk]

Fu*k the governments and their nonsense rules .

Is this fair to ask the taxes to someone who are not using our services? but our governments works like this just similar to dictatorship even if we are in democratic country,we need to pay what they are asking for.

This can be resolved only by selecting the good leaders who can think only about the welfare of the citizen not about their economics

[Biscutard]

What kind of regulation was that?  I am sure there must be a brief explanation for this, but if that regulation doesn't fit to any category of the rules then their might be an anomaly either they do have a corrupt government already. I will gladly accept if that person is using his solar as a business and he really needs to pay because of his business.

[Rahar02]

Of course, that would be the logical way to do things and to get rid of the evil gubbermint

But there is a small problem, checking with google solar, which approximates the numbers of hours you get enough sunlight to produce energy, it seems that the region has no more than 1500 hours of sunlight, basically 5 hours a day on average.

He has consumed 600 kwh in April, we might consider 800 during winter, that means he is taking close to 30 kwh a day from the grid.

Only this will cost him about 24k$ in powerwalls.
And with the extra solar panels he needs to load those batteries, you can pretty much understand why he hasn't done it.

Yes as the sun won't be available so much to cover their needs especially in winter season, there is no other choice if he doesn't want to buy an expensive generator which cost more + oil, although it's not a green energy but he can achieve the goal of self-sufficiency. However, not many options left and still connect to the grid and pay the taxes seems make sense till this point as maybe there is another thing to consider >>

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I did find this in the linked article though:

The provincial government did say it has commissioned a review of the electrical grid, which could lead to changes to the net-metering program.

...so they also probably realize how stupid this is.

[Hiltohen]

if this is true, it is clearly a robbery on the part of the government, this is absurd, why would the man be taxed? anyway, maybe this is just an isolated incident, putting up a solar panel is very expensive, but imagine the savings on the part of the owner, it  is very economical and environmental, maybe the installation and all that is why he was taxed.

Well I am amazed with this thing, how can a person in single capacity is manufacturing his own electricity. How is that possible? There is no option for any person in any country to manufacture electricity and government is unaware of it. But yes, many people have installed solar panels on their roofs and running their homes on it but still they must pay tax as they are living in that country.

What I think is, as far as he is not getting any electricity bill from government which he definitely should be receiving if he has really owns electricity generating by any means, it is well and good. But he cannot run from paying other taxes. If he thinks he can live without paying a single penny to the state, he needs to wake up from his dream soon.

[tenebriscaelum]

If a men should generate his own electricity I think he should only have a small tax percentage of what he use to at least have a contribution to the government, but it should not be forced to pay as he generates his own and if he decides to pay a tax it would be his contribution for his community and if he is forced to it and pay for the exact amount of electricity if he uses the one given by the government even though he generates it then it is just unreasonable and should not be allowed by the person.

[MainIbem]

Tax is a complicated thing. It is a crime to evade tax, but you can avoid tax. I read this from the article; The “HST” is a tax that has been imposed on the homeowners of Canada, and Currie was unaware that his “net-zero” home doesn’t qualify for any exemption from this tax. He was intending to avoid tax but has not taken enough steps for him to avoid the tax. Please note that ignorance of the law is not an excuse. Most of us do not seek the views of tax experts.

[marginal]

I'm wondering how much he is paying to the government for the electricity which he's not using at all, we're having these counters which would count how many kilowatts you are consuming.

[pumbum]

there is nothing critical here. perhaps there is a way to remove this tax as invalid and contrary to logic

[Separate_Bass]

Crazy crazy stuff really. I really don't know much of our lives the government wants to sit on. I might be the only one thinking this way. But isn't it baseless that this is happening? Why should a man pay for what he is not utilizing? This kinda defies very basic logic. Isn't there some way the man can raise some awareness and fight against this? But who's even paying attention these days?

[pumbum]

perhaps it is a tax on some kind of fixed service, which is available even if a person does not use electricity

[KINGCHACHA1]

If the electricity supply of that country constant and cheap there is not that will prompt anyone to think of generating his or her own electricity. So the taxation department suppose to be ashamed of incompetent of the power companies instead of taxing such citizen. I will not pay such tax.

[timerland]

I dunno if these tax laws are specifically targeted at these kind of self-generated electricity users, or they are just a byproduct of the mainstream tax laws.

Obviously, I don't think that it's fair at all for the guy here. He's not using up any public resources or anything like that. He uses solar power, which is definitely not state owned. Having to pay taxes for something that is totally out of the control of the government anyways, and is totally self sufficient, is just absurd.

It's unlikely that these laws will be changed since it's currently probably just a few individuals with this issue. It definitely means that potential crypto miners that want to generate their own electricity in the future will be discouraged from staying in countries with these kind of taxes.

[kenel]

hmm, interesting logic, why pay for something, than not're using? I think it's a simple mistake that's easy to fix.

[Nahl]

Those governments were greedy indeed and they should be provide to their citizen the comfortable of life but not utilize people however in my place i was see there was several people use solar panel to get electricity and luckly my government support them and never ask to them to pay electricity taxes

[thresher]

This is a news story about a man who installed 35 solar panels on his home.

http://www.anonews.co/man-still-has-to-pay-tax-for-energy-he-generates-himself/

This man pays electricity taxes on every watt of energy his house consumes, even though he is self sufficient & produces more energy than he consumes from the power grid.

Should he pay taxes for a service rendered by the state which he does not utilize?

Crypto taxes are a hot topic in this section. This news story could in the future apply to crypto mining. Imagine if someone bought enough solar panels to power their bitcoin mining operation. And the state charged them for every kilowatt hour of energy their bitcoin miners consume, even though their operation is fully powered independently outside of state generated or regulated electrical grids.

This news story reminds me of this case where uganda tried to tax its citizens for using social media websites like twitter and facebook:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4614685.0

What are peoples thoughts on this?

Which country is that?  The government must be very stupid to be doing such a thing. In my country if you’re using energy that is not being supplied by the government to you, you wouldn’t have to pay any more of energy bills or taxes to the government, but you will also have to go to the government to report that you no longer make use of their energy supply cause if you don’t it will continue to increase and when you decide to use it later, you will pay those bills that have gathered there.