Iowa businessman concerned about tax reform

(KCRG)
Published: Dec. 17, 2017 at 7:23 PM CST
Email This Link
Share on Pinterest
Share on LinkedIn

Terry Dvorak is inspecting what crews have to finish in his latest project. The panels will provide a majority of the energy for Palo's city hall, fire station and water treatment plant.

"There's a little wiring that need to be done,” Dvorak said.

Dvorak the founder and CEO of Red Lion Renewables, based out of Norwalk. He says the company's mission is to provide a clean form of energy and get investors to pay a bulk of the price tag. That way cities, like Palo, won't have to pay for the installation and upkeep of these panels.

"In order to get these projects to work it involves tax credits and you have to have an investors that use these,” Dvorak said.

Currently, Dvorak says investors get about a 10 percent return on projects like this. But the GOP's tax plan could change things.

"The corporate tax rate dropping is the killer,” Dvorak said

The plan now involves cutting the corporate tax rate from 35 percent down to 21. If passed, Dvorak says it'll be harder for his business to attract investors.

"Our plans with the corporate investors was to do about $200 million with projects like this. Over the next three years, they were going to make a 10 percent return and now they're only going to make a five percent return, so they're out,” Dvorak said

The trouble, a drop in investors could impact Dvorak's plans to expand and create 500 jobs across the state in the next three years. It's counter to what the GOP says are the biggest benefits to their reform plan.

“If you look at the whole thing everyone is going to benefit, but I think the greatest benefit will be for the jobs and middle class,” President Trump said.

Dvorak hopes that the tax plan won't go through. But he admits it probably will. So, he's preparing for a clean-energy sedative in eastern Iowa.

"From my standpoint it’s going to slow down what we do."