Corporate Tax Cuts Could Mean ‘Quite Substantial’ Savings In New Englanders’ Electricity Bills
Photo by Walid Mahfoudh via Creative Commons
New England electricity customers could get a direct benefit from a cut in federal corporate taxes — lower utility bills.
Consumer advocates in New England are calling on regulators and utilities to turn over to ratepayers any savings from a reduction in the corporate income tax rate, which the recent tax law knocked down by 40 percent.
“Nobody really saw it until the very end of the process, that this little piece of it would allow these savings to be passed on directly to consumers,” says Don Kreis, New Hampshire’s consumer advocate.
Kreis says in most cases, for-profit utilities’ federal taxes are actually covered by their customers. So the tax cut could make a real dent in the portion of utility bills residents and businesses pay for the distribution lines that take electricity from the regional grid to their locations.