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
What about those people who use solar energy directly without first producing electricity? After all, I am sure there must people in Spain who hang their washing out to dry in the sun. Surely, if they don’t want to pay a tax they should hang their washing in the shade instead!
You can’t make this up.
A government has actually acted on a real life version of Bastiat’s Petition of the Candlemakers parody. Incredible!
http://bastiat.org/en/petition.html
CodeTech says:
July 26, 2013 at 1:16 pm
I always thought a tax was supposed to be a way for governments to finance services they provide. So does the Spanish government provide sunlight now?
It looks like the subsidies are so high that even encouraged people to collect the photons during the night. Being also difficult if not impossible to repel, this came as a service to the non photon collectors persons, as crazy as it may seem, recollecting back some subsidies – see also Daniel’s post above at July 26, 2013 at 11:41 am
It’s not crazy in a nation already crazy with a monolithic national union and over 20 percent unemployment rates.
Windmills tilting at the people.
Speaking (drawing?) of windmills, xkcd has a couple, the first of which is probably appropriate
in a number of ways:
http://xkcd.com/556/ (Alternative Energy Revolution) and
http://xkcd.com/1119/ (Undoing)
(probably along the lines of http://xkcd.com/562/ [Parking])
Doesn’t England also claim to own the water that falls on one’s property?
They reign in Spain who tax the folks to pain….
A comment from an expat in Spain.
“If you generate your own electricity you will now be forced to install a very expensive new meter, which is almost as expensive as a solar panel. This meter also records the amount that we generate and use ourselves, and charges us the tax on each kilowatt.
Meaning that if currently the average homeowner pays off his solar kit in 12 years, once the new law comes in, it will take us 23 years to pay it off and start seeing savings.
Oh, and if you already have such a kit installed – you also have to comply with the new laws.
Read more http://www.davidjackson.info/2013/homeowners-to-be-taxed-for-producing-their-own-electricity.htm“http://www.davidjackson.info/2013/homeowners-to-be-taxed-for-producing-their-own-electricity.htm
What began with subsidies, “creating green jobs,” and “leveling the playing field” for worthless wind turbines and solar panels had to end with consumption tax on sunlight.
Bastiat’s Candlemaker’s Petition
“We are suffering from the ruinous competition of a rival who apparently works under conditions so far superior to our own for the production of light that he is flooding the domestic market with it at an incredibly low price; for the moment he appears, our sales cease, all the consumers turn to him, and a branch of French industry whose ramifications are innumerable is all at once reduced to complete stagnation. This rival, which is none other than the sun, is waging war on us so mercilessly we suspect he is being stirred up against us by perfidious Albion (excellent diplomacy nowadays!), particularly because he has for that haughty island a respect that he does not show for us [1].
We ask you to be so good as to pass a law requiring the closing of all windows, dormers, skylights, inside and outside shutters, curtains, casements, bull’s-eyes, deadlights, and blinds — in short, all openings, holes, chinks, and fissures through which the light of the sun is wont to enter houses, to the detriment of the fair industries with which, we are proud to say, we have endowed the country, a country that cannot, without betraying ingratitude, abandon us today to so unequal a combat.
First, if you shut off as much as possible all access to natural light, and thereby create a need for artificial light, what industry in France will not ultimately be encouraged?”
~Frederic Bastiat
Zeke says:
“California is going to be so jealous.”….
That they didn’t think of it first !!
rafaelneville – there is a difference between private use of water and of sunlight. When you use sunlight, you are not taking it away from anyone else.
So the next thing wil be solar panels disguised as roof tiles? or flip over like James Bond number plates?
My Gawd – if the Spanish ‘allow’ this through their government, then all I can say is stuff them for being so stupid! Heck if the Greeks can organise big protests, you would think the Spaniards could do the same?
Try here http://elpais.com/elpais/2013/07/23/inenglish/1374591905_024635.html
Will there be a tax for sunbathing ?
Spain are amatuers compared to Danmark.
Because of massive subsidies for solar panels, in a system in which the house owner sells electricity from suncells back to the grid, the tax office (government) excused (unexpected) cuts
in subsidies by explaining that private individuals “were not” paying tax on their production of electricity, which they would have had to, if they bought directly from the grid.
The argument goes that IN Denmark, if you eat grass from your lawn, then you avoided the tax on the beef-steak (yes in Denmark there is tax on everything) you could have bought instead. You are therefore liable (according to the tax-office) to pay the same tax for the grass (you produced) anyway.
I kid you not.
Think there’s any link between economically stupid taxes and regulations and Spain’s 26.8% unemployment rate?
Margaret Hardman says (July 26, 2013 at 3:30 pm): “Try here ”
Thanks, Margaret.
As Chilli says (July 26, 2013 at 11:22 am), the aim is apparently to offset some of the costs of connecting private solar panels to the grid:
“Right now, it is possible to generate energy privately in Spain as long as it is used immediately – known as instantaneous self-consumption.”
This tends to make up for the outrageous subsidies being paid solar power generators, although it would seem more reasonable just to phase out the subsidies, right?
However, the would-be private solar generator/consumer is still screwed, because he’s not allowed to store excess generated power:
“Excess energy may not be stored in batteries as that is prohibited. When there is no sun or wind, consumers have to use the regular service and pay the bill.”
which IMHO is what really makes this a let-them-eat-cake kind of situation. The article doesn’t mention if households are allowed to use diesel or human-powered generators.
CodeTech says:
July 26, 2013 at 1:16 pm
I always thought a tax was supposed to be a way for governments to finance services they provide.
You seriously thought that? Since when? Tax (defined as legalised theft of property from citizens by their ruling masters) is to finance whatever the Government bloody like.
daylight robbery
Julia Gillard will be pissed off she didn’t think of it.
My skin collects sunlight. Will I be fined for taking a beach holiday on the Costa del Sol?
Josh – this is made for you! A cartoon of a Spaniard being dragged away by the Carabineros for having a siesta in the sun. America, please don’t succumb to the control knobblers.
I can actually understand the rationale for this – but it’s like trying to fix a soup that is burned – no matter what you do, you’re just throwing good ingredients after bad. Or, to use another cooking metaphor, you can’t unscramble an egg.
Since the courts have ruled out clawing back the long-term subsidies that they are locked into, and they are in hock up to the eyeballs, desperate measures are being tried. I don’t know enough about the Spanish constitution or system of government to see how they can get of this self-imposed mess, but it is certainly a lesson that other governments (and voters) should heed.
The window tax was a way to tax a house based on its size and value. The more windows, the bigger and more expensive the house is. In colonial America and in our early states we did the same thing. But I don’t think it is quite the same as taxing the sun. Which seems very stupid and counterproductive to me if you want to encourage solar development. That is apparently not Spain’s goal.
Interesting times….. to say the least.