It's his fellow citizens' tax money he is taking. If that's ok with you, so be it.

I think you are missing the best counter-argument to my position: the state wanted this result. If there are no winners, then, arguably, the state has collected more net revenue than it expected, and the roll-down is the state's way of giving back some excess revenue to those astute enough to apply for it. By "professionalizing" the recoupment, the guy in this article captured more than his politically fair share of the goodies, but that's sort of like a tax incentive (aka, loophole) being used more than policymakers thought it would be used.