Posted on 05/04/2013 9:45:55 PM PDT by Orange1998
NORTH TEXAS (CBS 11) – No one enjoys paying taxes. But everybody has to do it… or do they?
CBS 11’s I-Team has obtained a study that says Oncor, the giant electric utility company in North Texas, is collecting hundreds of millions of dollars from customers for federal taxes that don’t exist.
“Since 2008, they have collected $500 million for the purpose of paying taxes on their income,” said Randy Moravec, executive director of the Texas Coalition for Affordable Power, a coalition of member cities – including Arlington, Plano and Frisco – that works toward finding the lowest rates for residents.
Asked how much of that money has actually reached the Internal Revenue Services, Moravec said: “None … not a penny.”
“Those taxes that are collected from the consumer never end up getting paid to the federal government,” he said, adding, “It’s an unfair levy on consumers.”
The coalition, also known as TCAP, took a look at the part of your monthly electric bill – the part where Oncor collects money for federal taxes. For the average family, it amounts to only a few dollars a month, or about $30 a year, and is not itemized on your bill.
Although Oncor collects for federal taxes, it actually does not owe the IRS anything because its majority owner, Dallas-based Energy Future Holdings, has been operating in the red for years.
(Excerpt) Read more at dfw.cbslocal.com ...
They don't provide my 'lektrikity, but they have the contract to manage the lines etc... around these parts.
*&#^@@s pulled my meter by mistake while I had 6 computers doing distributed computations.
I didn't kill the non-english speaking flunky.
I did speak with my service provider and got a call back from a VP and a written apology letter.
And no, I don't run everything on a battery backup. I wait until good weather to do stuff like that.
I just don't expect some bozo to pull my meter at 8:00 am for no darn good reason.
Oncor can pound sand.
/johnny
Time for a class-action lawsuit. Any lawyers here?
Pulled the Meter by mistake? Some customers need electricity for life saving medical devices.
Most investor owned electric utilities have 3 sets of accounting books, sometimes more. One that is based on Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) accounting principles, one based on Tax rules, and one for the management and the Security and Exchange Commission.
The deal is that the electric utility retail rates are set up on a pro-forma basis and based on FERC accounting. For tax purposes, electric utilities get huge investment tax credits and other ways to reduce taxes in their tax books that don’t show up in their FERC accounting books. This creates huge “future tax liabilities” in the FERC books, which is where the over-collected money ends up. Actually it ends up in the hands of the utility stockholders, but that is another story.
Again, if you Google this topic you can find it being an issue in some states back in the 1970’s and earlier.
Citizens rights have long been abandon. I wonder if the cell phone bill have taxes that are non-existent. Many taxes on the cell bill no one understands.
People care more about “The Voice”, “The Bachelor”, “Iron Man” and the likes.
That would even make Enron blush.
It was a good 6 hours of work to get everything situated and restart the computations.
My red hair may have shown itself that morning. I was somewhat.... upset. I spoke mainly in NCO for a while that day.
/johnny
These people need to start paying for this crap, and I mean personally. Really personally.
After that? All bets are off, and devil take the hindmost.
/johnny
Our power went out for three days and we had to deal with Oncor and it was a real pain in the @$$.
Class action my ass. The officers of this company should go to prison.
Private checking accounts.
good luck getting it back
Welcome to the world of a government regulated utility. This is exactly what always happens when regulators tell businesses how to conduct business. As a regulated public utility. Oncor’s books are open to the public. They are hiding nothing. They are simply responding to conflicting regulations. Don’t blame the company, blame the government regulators.
Looks like So-Cal Edison has expanded it’s operations to Texas,
That is Corzine MF Global defense. It working for him so far.
Underneath it is the leveraged buyout of TXU by Energy Future Holdings. You know, corporate raiders and vulture capitalism. Oncor and Luminant are subsidiaries of EFH.
This was the largest LBO in US history and it took two private equity companies to pull it off.
Now they have to "restructure their debt".
The LBO was a disaster and now the Wall Street guys are making the public pay for their mistake. It’s a crime no two ways about it.
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