The Internal Revenue Service urged a bankruptcy judge to reject solar panel maker Solyndra LLC’s bankruptcy plan Wednesday, saying that it amounts to little more than an avenue for owners of an empty corporate shell to avoid paying taxes, The Washington Times reported yesterday. Attorneys said in filings that the tax breaks would be worth more money than the 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. Under Solyndra’s reorganization plan, two 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. Government attorneys have said that while the reorganization plan had “some marginal benefits,” there was no doubt that the most important priority was to “preserve a shell corporation to be able to reduce future tax liabilities by hundreds of millions of dollars.”
