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Show j UP&L requests rate decrease ; for residential customers i Utah Power & Light Co. has re-, re-, quested a rate decrease to pass on I to consumers the positive effects of recent tax law changes. ; Under the rate decrease, UP&L ; customers in Utah will see rates ; drop slightly less than one percent. An average residential customer j using 549 kilowatt-hours per month would see his annual power bill de-i de-i crease $7.18. '' The rate reduction is in addition ; to the five percent to 10 percent rate reductions the company has j promised "in connection with its I proposed merger with Pacific .Corp. The tax savings resulted from the Tax Reform Act of 1986. That law changed the federal corporate tax rate from 46 percent to 34 percent, per-cent, resulting in a tax burden that is $27 million lighter for UP&L's operations in Utah. UP&L met with officials from the Utah Division of Public Utilities Utili-ties and the state Committee of Consumer Services to work out a satisfactory way of passing the tax savings back to customers. At the same time, the company proposed to offset certain costs of fuel and purchased power that otherwise would have required a rate increase. in-crease. The division, committee and company agreed to a 2.9 percent rate increase resulting from increased in-creased fuel and purchased power costs, offset by a 3.7 percent rate decrease resulting from the tax savings. The net rate decrease amounted to .87 percent. . Utah's Public Service Commission Commis-sion must review and approve the rate reduction plan. If approved, the rate decrease would become effective retroactive retroac-tive to Jan. 1, 1988. Customers will first see the rate reduction take effect on their March bills. The March bills also will contain credits for energy usage in January and February. |
