•January 8, 2020•
By Peter Hancock
Capitol News Illinois

Two of the state’s largest electric utilities owe their customers a combined $543 million in refunds, according to state regulators, but there is sharp disagreement over how much time the companies should have to pay it back.
At issue for Ameren Illinois and Commonwealth Edison, also known as ComEd, is money they collected to pay future tax bills before federal tax cuts which took effect in 2018 lowered those anticipated rates.
When the corporate tax rate was slashed from 35 percent to 21 percent, both companies found themselves holding onto large surpluses, known as “excess deferred income taxes,” or EDIT.
For ComEd, which serves 4 million customers in Chicago and northern Illinois, the excess amounted to $385 million. For Ameren, which serves about 1.2 million customers in central Illinois and the Metro East area, it amounted to $158 million.
In a pair of rulings last year, the Illinois Commerce Commission, which regulates public utilities, said ComEd could pay off its EDIT over 38 years and Ameren could pay off its bill over 35 years. But on Monday, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul announced he is asking the ICC to reconsider that decision and shorten the payout period to just five years.     Login or Subscribe to read the rest of this story.