Tell Congress: Help more families go solar. Pass direct pay for the residential solar tax credit
Affordable solar energy should be accessible to everyone. Too many working families are missing out on the opportunity to go solar because existing national incentives are only available to high income earners. That’s why Congress needs to pass direct pay for the residential solar tax credit in the budget reconciliation bill.
Direct pay means that families who owe little or no federal tax will receive a refund from the government equal to 26% of the cost of going solar. Enabling everyone to use the credit as a direct payment would bring more fairness to the system.
Passing direct pay would:
- Put working families on equal footing with higher-income households
- An estimated 26 million households are unable to benefit from the current solar tax credit, simply because they do not have sufficient taxable income.
- Lower income famillies spend disproportionately more on energy, meaning they would benefit disproportionately from solar savings.
- Adjust an existing policy to help us reach our renewable energy goals
- Direct pay for Section 25D is key to achieving a bold goal of 30 million new solar homes, which would create 1.77 million new solar jobs.
- Low- to moderate-income households represent 42% of all new residential solar power potential.
- Equitably build community resilience
- Homes powered by solar and battery storage maintained power during recent severe storms and fires, while others were left in the dark from power outages.
- Failure to ensure all families can benefit from the residential solar tax credit perpetuates inequitable access to resilient sources of clean energy.