Press Releases
01/24/2019
ATTORNEY GENERAL TONG PRAISES PURA DECISION LOWERING RATES ACROSS ALL PUBLIC UTILITIES
Attorney General William Tong issued the following statement today praising a decision by the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority to ensure that corporate tax cuts for public utilities enacted in December 2017 are fully passed on to consumers in the form of lower rates:
"This decision today means lower rates across the board for Connecticut consumers across all regulated utilities. Ratepayers shoulder the burden of utility taxes, and the Office of the Attorney General fought to ensure every dollar saved due to corporate tax cuts will be used to drive down rates. My office will continue to fight on behalf of Connecticut ratepayers and to identify any and all avenues to recover savings and lower costs," said Attorney General Tong.
In January 2018, PURA opened a proceeding to determine what adjustments to rates would be appropriate to account for the corporate tax reductions contained in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act enacted by Congress on December 20, 2017. The Act reduced the federal corporate income tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent. The Office of the Attorney General urged PURA to return 100 percent of the tax benefits from the Act to ratepayers.
In a decision Wednesday, PURA determined that all of Connecticut's regulated water, local gas distribution, and electric distribution must return to ratepayers the full benefit of their new federal corporate tax cuts that took effect last year.
Assistant Attorney General John S. Wright and Consumer Protection Department Head Mike Wertheimer assisted the Attorney General with this matter.
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