Any tax relief received by the solar industry would not benefit the homeowner who installs a solar-energy system. Even though homeowners would pay a lower price for solar-energy system installations because of this tax relief, with the government paying the balance, government revenues come from the public.
The argument above is based on which of the following assumptions?
Conclusion: Any tax relief by solar industry would not benefit the homeowner who installs a solar-energy system.
Premise: Even if homeowners pays a low price of the solar energy systems, government revenues still come from the public
Pre-thinking: There are other sources of taxes (e.g road tax) that will still go out from these homeowner's pockets.
(A) The tax relief would cause the homeowner to lose, through taxes or reduced government benefits or both, an amount at least equal to the reduction in the price of that homeowner's solar-energy system installation.
Correct: Let's keep (A) because this answer choice says that because of this tax relief the homeowner would lose some amount of money(no benefit).
(B) The tax relief that would be received by solar-energy industries would not be offered at the same time as any tax relief for other industries.
Incorrect: Irrelevant. The time at which tax relief would be offered has nothing to do with the benefit to the homeowners. Even if you negate this, does the conclusion fall apart? No.
(C) Advertisements of the solar-energy industry, by failing to identify the source of government revenues explicitly to the public, mask the advantage the industry receives from the public.
Incorrect: Out-of-Scope. Even if Ads of the solar energy industry mask the advantage the industry receives from the public by failing to identify the source of government revenues, this has nothing to do with the benefit the homeowners would receive from tax relief
(D) Homeowners generally believe that they benefit from any tax relief offered to the solar-energy industry.
Incorrect: Irrelevant. Even if the homeowners believe they benefit, in reality the benefit is not even there as per the conclusion. Hence this information does not strengthen the fact that tax relief will not provide any benefit.
(E) Tax relief would encourage solar industries to sell solar-energy systems at higher prices.
Incorrect: Irrelevant. Here this is talking about the possible effects of tax relief on the solar industries and nothing about how it would then affect the homeowners. Given the premise, they obviously would want a lower price. Even if the above were not true, it does not break down our conclusion.