Entergy lowering residential rates

Published 11:55 pm Thursday, June 28, 2018

NATCHEZ — The Tax Cuts and Job Act cut Entergy Mississippi’s corporate tax rate 14 percent — from 35 percent to 21 percent — and Entergy is passing on the savings to its more than 449,000 Mississippi customers, the company announced this week.

Starting July 1 and lasting through September, “the typical residential customer bill for 1,000 kilowatt hours will drop more than $12 per month . . . of that amount, $7.59 stems from tax reform,” a company spokesman said. “This means the current typical residential customer bill for 1,000 kilowatt hours will drop from $114.01 to $101.37 from July through September.”

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Of the $12 rate reduction, $7.59 stems from tax reform and the remaining $5.05 is from a Mississippi Public Service Commission fuel order that was designed to reduce bills during the hot summer months, said Mara Hartmann, spokesperson for Entergy Mississippi.

The rate reduction will take Entergy’s entire 14 percent tax reduction for the three months July through September, Hartmann said.

“After September,” Hartmann said, “a portion of that fuel order reduction will remain in effect through next February.”

That means, after the tax cut reduction goes out of effect, between October and February, residential customers with a regular $114.01 bill will still be paying a reduced rate of $109, Hartmann said.

The tax cuts also allowed Entergy to avoid a rate increase from upgrades Entergy has been performing in recent years, the company said.

“(The plan) lets us avoid a rate increase that would have resulted from nearly $1 billion in improvements we’ve made to strengthen and modernize the grid for our customers the past three years,” said Haley Fisackerly, president and CEO of Entergy Mississippi.