I was a panelist at an event held at Mayer Brown’s New York office addressing Environmental, Social and Governance (“ESG”) investing on October 4. On the panel, I addressed the tax benefits associated with certain ESG investments, with a focus on Qualified Opportunity Zone Funds and solar investment tax credits (ITC). Here are the slides that I presented to describe each on a high level: Qualified Opportunity Zone and ITC Slides for ESG Event.
The solar ITC slides ignores tax equity structures and assumes outright ownership, so the numbers are a little simplified relative to many transactions in the market.
We are still waiting on Qualified Opportunity Zone regulations. Currently, the regulations are being reviewed by the Office of Management and Budget and are expected to be released any day.
On the solar front, we have heard from an IRS attorney that the IRS has resumed work on the regulations defining “energy property” for ITC purposes, but the regulations are not expected to be released until 2019.