No, I’m not kidding. Truly, idiocy has no bounds.
In Spain, they appear to have actually done this, with fines up to 30 million Euros for non compliance.
The stupid, it sunburns. Air will be next. Breath tax.
From MISH’S Global Economic Trend Analysis:
link to Google translated article: El Pais, Spain Privatizes The Sun
If you get caught collecting photons of sunlight for your own use, you can be fined as much as 30 million euros.
If you were thinking the best energy option was to buy some solar panels that were down 80% in price, you can forget about it.
…
“The Spanish Photovoltaic Union (UNEF), which brings together some 300 companies representing 85% of the industry, ensures that, implemented these changes, it would be more expensive solar consumption resorting to conventional supply. “It prevents the savings to consumers and paralyzes the entry of new competition in the electricity market,” contemplate. ”
Source: http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2013/07/spain-levies-consumption-tax-on-sunlight.html
h/t to OSSqss
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Proof – if any was ever needed – that it’s all a government sponsored scam.
The brains in Spain have gone completely down the drain.
Its precursor in England was the notorious Window Tax.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Window_tax
Socialism + centrist regulation = Crony Capitalism. Adan Smith warned about this sort of thing.
Is that diesel powered solar?
“Backup Toll”? Sounds like a good idea to me. Isn’t this just a sensible attempt by the Spanish government to claw back some of the over generous, index-linked, 25-year ‘Feed-in tariff’ subsidies they offered solar subsidy farmers, back before the credit crunch and the Euro currency crisis?
NOW you can say, “Es el sol, estúpido. .”
“Backup Tax” – It makes perfect sense to me as long the consumer is on the grid. The tax should apply to industrial sun and industrial wind as well. If not,…
JohnB
California is going to be so jealous.
If you invest in nonsense, what follows will be complete idiocy.
Chilli – eh? Think about it. So much for the freedom of the individual. Sounds like a load of vested interests protecting their newly acquired corner of the market. Why not just take away the subsidies? Oh, haven’t they had to do that already?
I’m a Spaniard living in Spain, and I can assure you these policies just keep on accumulating.
Don’t forget the previous idiotic release from the Ministry, trying to encouraging owners of solar farms to dismantle their installations in exchange for money.
And guess what?
Water is also being taxed the same way, if you find water in your property, you can’t use it, you have to pay a fee to the gov’t. There are people inspecting for illegal wells in private properties.
Regarding the electric sector in Spain, yes, they’ve been swindling the people for at least 40 years or more. Their rates are the highest in Europe, despite being leaders in windmills.
More information is available underneath, the “ataquealpoder” blog ones are the best in the world to discover what’s up with the energy sector for real, although in Spanish, it’s very accurate.
Also I link the original document where this moronic law is written.
– The following is in spanish –
El Gobierno dará incentivos económicos a las empresas que cierren sus instalaciones renovables
http://www.elconfidencial.com/economia/2013/07/17/el-gobierno-dara-incentivos-economicos-a-las-empresas-que-cierren-sus-instalaciones-renovables-125110/
Industria gravará con un peaje la producción casera de electricidad
La tasa es un 27% más cara que la que se abona por comprar a las compañías eléctricas
Los ajustes asfixian a 30.000 familias con huertos solares
http://sociedad.elpais.com/sociedad/2013/07/19/actualidad/1374237478_141414.html
Propuesta de Real Decreto por el que se establece la regulación de las
condiciones administrativas, técnicas y económicas de las modalidades
de suministro de energía eléctrica con autoconsumo y de producción con autoconsumo.
http://www.burbuja.info/inmobiliaria/burbuja-inmobiliaria/443334-borrador-de-real-decreto-del-auto-consumo.html
http://s01.s3c.es/imag/doc/2013-07-18/CCE-Propuesta-RD-AUTOCONSUMO.pdf
¡Y no nos olvidemos del canon del agua!
“Da igual que el agua proceda de pozos o manantiales privados o que la red de suministro fuera construida y financiada por los vecinos. Todos ellos, hasta ahora libres de pagar el canon, tendrán que saldar cuentas con la Administración autonómica.”
http://www.farodevigo.es/galicia/2010/05/19/doscientos-mil-nuevos-hogares-tendran-pagar-canon-agua-e-instalar-contadores/440042.html
Si queréis saber de que rollo van las eléctricas, leeros estos 9 artículos del genial Jose Manuel Novoa Novoa, son indispensables para comprender como nos engañan, desde cuándo y como sus artimañas no deberían de sorprendernos dado su historial delictivo:
https://ataquealpoder.wordpress.com/category/el-mentiroso-recibo-de-la-luz/
Also I find very stupid to put limits and not promote solar energy in a country well known for it’s many hours of sunlight.
Promoting solar energy derived products in england would be more stupid than doing it in Spain.
Of course, doing it in Spain would justify the “liberation” of the individual face-to-face with the electrical companies, and that ain’t no good for business.
It’s programmed obsolescence.
Industry of Maintenance = Constant Profitability
We live in the world of scarcity trading.
Seems Kaizen has it’s days counted.
The real effect, of course, is that by shutting down demand for more panels the Spanish government is continuing to drive nails into the coffin of the Solar Energy business. Can’t think of a better way to kill the entire solar energy business than this!
Somebody must pay for all those windmills they put everywhere in Spain.
This must be one of those “it’s not April Fool’s Day but let’s pretend it is because it’s a slow news day” things. Right? Right?
Well, here in the U.S. we tax thoughts. Isn’t that sort of what the IRS scandals are all about?
@DOUGLAS TODD. From a skim read of the article it seems the ‘tax on sunlight’ headline is simply the way the solar subsidy farmers are trying frame this sensible charge. When a solar subsidy farmer connects his solar subsidy panel to the grid, in addition to the direct subsidies they receive from other energy users there is also a hidden subsidy: ‘The grid’ is required to accept the subsidy farmers intermittent output by curtailing output from cheaper conventional power stations when the sun happens to shine, and providing conventional backup sources when the sun goes behind a cloud or falls below the horizon. At the moment this hidden cost is again met by other bill payers (who are typically alot less wealthy than the subsidy farmers). This new “backup toll” seems like a sensible measure to redress the balance by reducing the unjustified subsidy payments. Agreed, it would make more sense to eliminate the subsidies entirely – however, perhaps this toll is an attempt to claw back some money from the 25 year subsidy contracts which were agreed at the height of MMGW hysteria.
Indeed, I have the impression that this tax is made to regain some money from the enormous subsidies the Spanish government still need to pay for many years to solar cell owners. The subsidies were so high that several farmers installed huge numbers of cells and could stop farming… The same with wind farms. Incredible how they destroyed the landscape not far from Gibraltar, right in the middle of the tracks of migrating birds from Europe to Africa and back…
Does the tax apply to cucumbers?
http://www.literaturepage.com/read/gulliverstravels-149.html
Oh good, they wouldn’t want their people to embrace a ‘sustainable’ ‘green’ future. heh.
Detroit needs this now!
Finally something I can comment on this blog and be useful! I’m a spanish journalist and computer programmer. This tax is part of a bigger reform because Spain has a deficit of billions of euros every year with electric companies, mainly because of the massive solar and wind energy grants. We spaniards pay more for electricity than other europeans, but still pay a lot less than they cost because of the financial incentives to green energies.
The link in which this post is based is written by Kaosenlared.net, a far far left pamphlet that buys the AGW and also the Cuba dictatorship. But there is something right: the electric reform is bullshit. At first, because our Supreme Court made impossible to stop paying green grants, the government planned to put a tax for 100% of the amount of the grant. But the pressure to stop this was succesful, and they have made an electric reform with a lot of new taxes so the deficit can be stopped. This is just one of them, possibly put in place so the electric companies doesn’t complain too much of all the other taxes.
Yes, this is crazy, but it’s only a small step when you already have a socialist energy system.
Just think about all the green jobs this will create. 🙂 Trickery from the start.
Tom J says:
July 26, 2013 at 11:18 am
Well, here in the U.S. we tax thoughts. Isn’t that sort of what the IRS scandals are all about?
_________________________________________________________________________
Well, more or else, but the difference is we call it a “scandal”, what they are doing in Spain is official government policy.