Duke Energy won’t raise customer rates based on tax order

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JEN WILSON

Duke Energy supports the legal reasoning regulators used in their recent ruling, but the company's N.C. utilities will not use it to increase rates they have already cut for customers.

John Downey

Senior Staff Writer- Charlotte Business Journal

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Duke Energy's two N.C. utilities won't raise rates to collect for corporate taxes they no longer pay, despite a recent regulatory ruling that would allow them to do so.

That decision will save customers of the two utilities $20 million per year – savings the utilities are already turning over to customers.

An Oct. 9 ruling would allow Duke Energy Carolinas and Duke Energy Progress, along with other utilities, to stop passing along those savings to customers. Rather, it would allow the utilities to raise rates to collect the money, based on the state's corporate income tax at last year's level.

Duke spokeswoman Lisa Parrish says Duke has opted not to have its utilities charge for the unpaid taxes.

The impact on any individual customers bill will be small. If Duke Carolinas had reimposed the old charge, it would have added 17 cents per month to a typical bill. At Duke Progress, it would have added 9 cents.

The General Assembly has reduced several taxes paid by utilities, including the franchise tax and the corporate income tax. In May, the N.C. Utilities Commission voted 6-1 that utilities had to turn those savings over to customers.

Utilities lowered their rates in July, as required. But electric utility Dominion North Carolina Power and gas utility PSNC Energy asked the commission to reconsider the order.

Parrish says Duke supports the legal conclusions the commission made its Oct. 9 order. But she says the company decided not to raise rates on its customers that had already been cut in July.

More here.

John Downey covers the energy industry and public companies for the Charlotte Business Journal.