Well, the state has finally come up with the perfect tax. It's a tax rate that is based on nothing.
If you are a customer of Duquesne Light, prior to spring 2002 your bill reflected a monthly charge for a "Transition Cost," supposedly an expense that Duquesne Light incurred as a result of deregulation.
Duquesne Light established the rate and the "cost" was based on the number of electricity used. Then, the transition cost was hit with a "State Tax Adjustment" that was passed on to the monetary black hole in Harrisburg.
So, when Duquesne Light ended the "Transition Cost" in the spring, you would think that the "State Tax Adjustment" would also disappear. Wrong, wrong, wrong! Well, it did in a way, except it's now called the "State Tax Adjustment Surcharge."
According to a representative I spoke with at Duquesne Light, it seems the money pit in Harrisburg still wants its tax money, whether or not there is anything to base it on. So we've been paying a tax of 1.5389 percent on nothing up until August, when we were informed that we are now going to pay 1.8747 percent on a zero "Transition Cost" amount.
No doubt Duquesne Light is doing some kind of extrapolation on what the "Transition Cost" would have been. But the fact remains, we aren't paying any transition cost, so we're being taxed on a zero value.
Bethel Park
