Signature Solar Taxes in the New Year

green mountain boys said:

You would think so but... Take a look at destination based sales tax vs origin based sales tax. More than half the states have moved to destination based sales tax but California and some others have not. Don't forget all of the county and city taxes too.

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Yep, and TX is high.

green mountain boys said:

You would think so but... Take a look at destination based sales tax vs origin based sales tax. More than half the states have moved to destination based sales tax but California and some others have not. Don't forget all of the county and city taxes too.

Click to expand...

It is such a headache trying to navigate the maze of different requirements.
I think they like it that way.
They can explain it three different ways, and all of them are in THEIR favor.

Danke said:

Yep, and TX is high.

How To Charge Sales Tax for Out-of-State Customers

Your obligation to charge out-of-state sales tax to your customers depends largely on whether you operate your business in an origin-based or a destination-based state.

www.thebalancemoney.com

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No income tax, so stick it to 'em where you can.

I went to the Signature Solar web site this evening and they're no longer adding taxes for Florida customers. What is strange is that when I went to a competitor's site last week, the competitor was not adding taxes but this evening they are now adding taxes. So if you're thinking about purchasing anything from Signature Solar, now is the time to pull the trigger before they go back to adding taxes.

Just my experience, when I bought my first set of Renogy panels at Home Depot in 2022 (in FL), they were taxed, It was a lot of red tape back and forth with the Tax exempt department of Home Depot to show them the Florida Law. They eventually reimbursed the sales tax. The last set of panels I bought at Home Depot in 2023 were automatically sales tax free (even using an online purchase). As for other businesses, you just need to send them the letter (attached earlier in this thread), and usually they will reimburse the sales taxes. I have done this with Bluetti and Amazon. This (FL) sales tax exempt includes even MC4 wires, connectors, ground rods, and even the construction of the mounting system.

Reviving this old thread since I hit this roadblock recently.

Florida law:

212.08(7)(hh):

"Solar energy systems.—Also exempt are solar energy systems or any component thereof. The Florida Solar Energy Center shall from time to time certify to the department a list of equipment and requisite hardware considered to be a solar energy system or a component thereof."

212.02(26):

"Solar energy system” means the equipment and requisite hardware that provide and are used for collecting, transferring, converting, storing, or using incident solar energy for water heating, space heating, cooling, or other applications that would otherwise require the use of a conventional source of energy such as petroleum products, natural gas, manufactured gas, or electricity."

There appears to be an "authority escalation" here in that FSEC seems to think that if they don't list it, it doesn't qualify for the sales tax exemption. Further, they even say this:


"Florida law (section 377.705, FS) require that all solar systems manufactured or sold in the state of Florida comply with Solar Equipment Standards promulgated by the Florida Solar Energy Center® (FSEC®)."

Well, let's look at that law, please.

377.705(4)(d):

"All solar energy systems manufactured or sold in the state must meet the standards established by the center and shall display accepted results of approved performance tests in a manner prescribed by the center, unless otherwise certified by an engineer licensed pursuant to chapter 471 using the standards contained in the most recent version of the Florida Building Code."

Did you catch the "unless" part? That basically says if the solar system meets the building code and a licensed engineer signs off on it, then it does NOT have to be certified by FSEC to be made or sold in Florida. A solar system meeting code is already the basic law we have (example UL1741 for grid tied inverters, UL 61730 for panels, etc).

So FSEC is on a power trip. They think they control what can be sold in Florida, but they don't.

As to the sales tax exemption, the law says solar equipment is exempt, period. The duty for FSEC is ONLY to provide a list to the DOR, but not being on that list doesn't cancel the tax exemption, and that list is not controlling to the purchasers.

Indeed, the form you fill out for the exemption is here:


And nowhere on that form does it say the equipment you are buying has to be on the FSEC list. A list is provided for "reference" but it is generic and does not list specific brands or models, unlike the FSEC listings.

Here is how this SHOULD work. The BUYER fills out the form TIP_19A01 above and sends it to the VENDOR. The VENDOR sells the solar equipment that generically meets the list in the form (solar panels, inverters, etc) and does so without charging sales tax. If the VENDOR gets audited, the form from the buyer provide the evidence backing up the exemption.

If this is NOT how it is working, then vendors are complicit in over charging us for solar equipment in Florida. It is, in fact, against the law to charge sales tax when a sale should be exempt.

PS: I tried to enter my proposed solar system into the FSEC approval website. What a terrible experience. Only my solar panels were on the FSEC list, so everything not on the list required a separate request to add them to the list. There was no timeline stated for how long that would take.

FSEC needs to back off and stop asserting authority they don't have.

Mike C.