Governor Andrew Cuomo’s proposed 2019 budget originally proposed the elimination of an important sales tax exemption that allows certain customers of Energy Service Companies (“ESCOs”) to receive electric and gas supply without paying transmission and distribution sales tax. Currently, nonresidential default utility customers pay sales tax on both commodity and delivery, while nonresidential ESCO customers pay sales tax only on commodity. The sales tax exemption is designed to incentivize consumer choice and allows ESCOs to offer competitive prices to their customer base.
Early Saturday morning, New York State lawmakers approved a $168 billion budget for fiscal year 2019. The budget for fiscal year 2019, which began on April 1, 2018, does not include the controversial repeal of the ESCO sales tax exemption.
Maintaining the long-standing ESCO sales tax exemption in the final budget is good news for ESCOs and their customers, which remain under continued pressure from the Public Service Commission to reform their business practices.