Solyndra, The Scams Just Keep On Coming: "IRS says ‘tax avoidance’ at heart of Solyndra bankruptcy plan"

The people involved with this company may have lost their moral compass*.
Or their freakin' minds.
From the Washington Times:

The Internal Revenue Service urged a bankruptcy judge to reject solar panel maker Solyndra LLC’s bankruptcy plan Wednesday, saying it amounts to little more than an avenue for owners of an empty corporate shell to avoid paying taxes.

“The undeniable conclusion is that tax benefits drive this plan,” attorneys for the IRS wrote in a bankruptcy pleading.

Arguing that the bankruptcy court ought not confirm a plan “whose principal purpose is tax avoidance,” attorneys said in filings in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware that the tax breaks would be worth more money than funds set aside for creditors.

Taxpayers are on the hook for more than a half-billion dollars after the company filed for bankruptcy last year, just two years after winning a loan guarantee from the Department of Energy.

What’s more, government attorneys said that as far back as 2010, Solyndra owners had “planned meticulously” to be able to use Solyndra’s net operating losses to offset future tax liabilities.
“The only reason for the shell corporation to exist post-confirmation is to enable its owners to exploit these tax attributes, which would be lost in liquidation,” the IRS argued in court papers.

One owner valued the so-called tax attributes at $150 million, dwarfing the $7 million to $8 million set aside by the reorganization plan for unsecured creditors, according to the government’s objection, which was filed by the Justice Department on behalf of the IRS.

Under Solyndra’s reorganization plan, two big investors in the company, Madrone Partners LP and Argonaut Ventures, together would own nearly all of a shell company formed in the wake of Solyndra’s bankruptcy reorganization....MORE

We probably have as many links on Solyndra as anyone, use the search blog box if interested. 

 

Building a brand new, 300,000 square foot building in Silicon Valley was extravagant.

I mean Intel has said they will never again build in the state of California, much less the valley.

 

The on-site employee spa was probably a bit much.

As Bloomberg reported a year ago:

..."The new building is like the Taj Mahal," John Pierce, 54, a San Jose resident who worked as a facilities manager at Solyndra, said in an interview. 

 

The plant features 19 loading docks, four electric car charging stations in the parking lot and landscaping of wild grass and a rock garden. An automated rail system moved parts through the assembly process.

Robots that resembled "a big freezer with wheels" maneuvered around the factory transporting panels from one machine to another, said George Garma, 49, a former Solyndra equipment maintenance technician from Fremont. The Disney tunes alerted workers to the robots' presence.

"It was first class," David Chan, 51, who was an information-technology contractor for Solyndra, said in an interview. "I've been in the business for 25 years and have seen some elaborate buildings. I've never seen a facility like it."...

But the most egregious thing to come out of this steaming pile of... is the fact that the Disney song they made the robots play was "Whistle while you work".