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Electric company plans to refund $27 million to its customers thanks to federal tax cuts
El Paso Electric plans to refund $27 million to its customers starting April 1. (Image source: YouTube screenshot)

Electric company plans to refund $27 million to its customers thanks to federal tax cuts

El Paso Electric plans to give back $27 million to its El Paso, Texas, area customers thanks to the federal corporate tax cuts that went into effect in January.

Residential customers would see the refund as an average 4.4 percent decrease (or $3.83) on their monthly electric bill. The company filed its request with Texas regulators last week, according to a news release.

El Paso Electric serves customers in West Texas and southern New Mexico.

When would customers see the refunds?

The tax refunds would begin April 1 and continue for 12 months. It will wipe out the company's $14.5 million rate increase that went into effect last summer, El Paso Times reported.

Small business customers, which already had a 2.6 percent decrease last year, can expect an average reduction of 4.6 percent.

All customers would see a reduction, but the company hasn't determined the percentages for other customer classes.

"One of the important provisions of our rate case settlement last year was to create a mechanism to pass-through the tax savings stemming from the reduction in the federal statutory income tax rate that was recently enacted,” El Paso Electric CEO Mary Kipp said in a statement.

"We worked with all the parties in the case to set up a means to pass that savings along to our customers quickly and efficiently," Kipp said.

According to the filing, the company expects to continue the refunds beyond April 2019. It will update customers annually on its bill reduction amounts.

The company is still working to determine the refund amounts for its southern New Mexico customers. It's also working with the New Mexico Public Company to establish how the customers would receive the refunds.

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