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As Raleigh’s News & Observer reported this morning, a study committee at the General Assembly appears to be in the process of advancing a legislative proposal for the 2015 session that would reverse a controversial Utilities Commission decision from last fall that provided a windfall to big utility companies.

As I explained in the Weekly Briefing last October, the ruling allowed utility companies the option to keep charging consumers for income taxes that the companies no longer paid as a result of recent corporate tax cuts. The ruling was especially controversial in that it came in the form of a direct about-face from a previous 6-1 Commission decision from just months before. In the latter ruling, three new McCrory appointees joined with the Commission chair to overrule the previous decision — a move that sparked bitter dissent from three holdover Perdue appointees.

According to news reports, most companies have not actually been collecting the windfall. Only Dominion North Carolina Power — which serves a swath of northeastern North Carolina — has been pocketing the cash thus far. Nothing, however, would prevent Duke and the other big guys from following suit at some point unless the courts and/or the General Assembly step in.

This brings us back to the Revenue Laws Study Committee which included language in its draft report to the 2015 session reversing the decision yet again — see pages 4-6. This morning’s N&O story — especially the headline (“NC lawmakers to end policy letting utilities overcharge customers”) indicated that the draft report would be adopted today and that the legislature would pass the legislation into law.

A closer look, however, shows that such an optimistic take may well be premature. Read More

Commentary
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UtilitiesNC Policy Watch followers will recall that last week we reported on a an recent and egregious giveaway to big utility companies in which the North Carolina Utilities Commission pulled a mysterious and unforeseen rabbit out of a hat to reverse its own previous ruling from earlier this year.

The case revolves around whether all of the 2013 tax cuts enacted by the General Assembly and Governor McCrory should be accounted for when it comes to computing the rates that regulated monopolies like Duke Energy are allowed to charge ratepayers. In May, the Commission ruled by a 6-1 vote that they must.

A few months later, however, in an abrupt and apparently unprecedented move, three McCrory appointees to the Commission changed their minds and signed on to a new opinion by the Commission chair, Ed Finley, in which the May ruling was summarily reversed and the “exceptions” (i.e. the appeal) submitted by two of the power companies upheld. Parties in the case were not even given a chance to submit arguments on the question.

According to the new majority, the cut to the state’s corporate income tax should not be factored into rates and companies should be free to keep the windfall if they like. According to the three overruled commissioners:

“The Majority’s decision, rescinding, in part, the Commission’s May 13, 2014 Order in this docket, allows the utilities to charge ratepayers in perpetuity to collect for taxes that the utilities no longer pay. The Majority’s decision errs with respect to fairness to ratepayers; errs procedurally with respect to due process and the limitations of the Commission’s right to rescind, alter, or amend an Order; and errs in its content with respect to its legal conclusions.”

As it turns out now — perhaps because of the adverse publicity here and elsewhere — most, if not all of the big utilities are now saying they will not keep the windfall.

This is good news for consumers but it should not be the end of the story. Even if the utilities are too embarrassed to keep their unearned money, the Commission majority’s heavy-handed action was and is still unacceptable and sets a terrible precedent — both with respect to substance and procedure.

Let’s hope that both the Utilities Commission Public Staff and Attorney General Roy Cooper stick to their guns, appeal the matter to the state judiciary and secure an order vindicating the rights of consumers ASAP.

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In case you missed it, a Sunday editorial in the Greensboro News & Record told it like it is when it comes to the matter of corporate taxes in North Carolina. It was entitled “Next to nothing.”

“What’s less than a lower corporate income-tax rate? What some businesses actually pay.

North Carolina legislators cut the state’s corporate income-tax rate last year from 6.9 percent to 6 percent. It’s scheduled to drop to 5 percent next year.

Republican lawmakers said the cut was needed to create a better business climate and make the state more competitive with its neighbors. Yet, cutting the rate to 5 percent isn’t very meaningful to a corporation that pays barely more than 1 percent.

Duke Energy, based in Charlotte, paid an average of 1.3 percent of North Carolina profits in state corporate income tax from 2008 through 2012, according to a study released last week by Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy. Read More

NC Budget and Tax Center
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The government shutdown finally ended last week, but the fight for a balanced approach to the federal budget continues. As part of the deal struck last week, Congress agreed to negotiate a comprehensive budget agreement that addresses sequestration and opens the door for new revenues. Perhaps the best potential source of new revenues comes from reining in the special tax loopholes, deductions, and outright giveaways that allow too many corporations to avoid paying their fair share in taxes.

Over the last year, we’ve profiled some of these tax loopholes, along with the corporations that use them to avoid their responsibilities. This month’s issue takes a look at IBM, which earned $45 billion in profits over the past five yeas, and managed to shelter almost $20 billion of those profits in offshore bank accounts to avoid US taxation. As a result, Big Blue managed to lower its actual effective tax rate to 5.8 percent, well below the statutory corporate tax rate of 35 percent.

As long as corporations like IBM are able to avoid paying their taxes, the rest of us will be asked to pick up the tab for addressing our nation’s budget challenges through spending cuts to key investments that grow our economy and protect our most vulnerable.

For more details, see the profile on IBM.

NC Budget and Tax Center
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Poverty continues to impact 1 in 5 North Carolinians, according to 2012 Census Bureau Data released last week. The extent of poverty would be far greater without the safety net and work supports, however. This post is part of a blog series that will explain how the new poverty data demonstrates the important role public programs play and the need for continued support. Read the other posts in this series on SNAP, Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, and the EITC.

As poverty continues to grow across many of North Carolina’s communities, Congress should reject federal budget policies that ask our poorest and most vulnerable citizens to bear the greatest load in putting our nation’s fiscal house in order. Congress needs to chart a course away from asking poor children, hungry seniors, and working families to solve our nation’s budget challenges on their own—through spending cuts to key investments in food assistance, early childhood education, and healthcare—and instead, take a balanced approach to the federal budget, one that includes new revenues and does not increase poverty.

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