Home heating cost: Westchester sets 3-month halt on taxing oil, gas, electric, wood fuel
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With home heating oil prices 66% higher than they were a year ago, Westchester County has lifted its 4% sales tax on home energy usage for the months of December, January and February to blunt the impact, saving homeowners and renters an estimated $18 million.
Westchester County Executive George Latimer says the sales-tax moratorium in Westchester will also apply to those who heat their homes with propane, natural gas, kerosene, wood and electricity. He noted the cutbacks in production by Saudi Arabia and the war in Ukraine as disruptors in the fossil-fuel marketplace that has impacted U.S. energy prices.
“Westchester County government is constantly looking to find ways to make the lives of residents a little easier,” said Latimer. “This winter, heating your home will now cost you a little less. As we all face rising costs in our daily lives, this suspension of certain sales taxes will add extra dollars to the wallets of those who call Westchester home.”
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Westchester’s three-month moratorium on energy purchases is expected to save the average home about $60 a month, or $180. The moratorium will be just 1.5% in four Westchester cities − Yonkers, Mount Vernon, White Plains and New Rochelle − because those cities have their own sales taxes.
Westchester, meanwhile, remains an outlier in the Hudson Valley for the remaining nine months of the year. Rockland County repealed its tax on residential energy in October. Neither Putnam nor Dutchess counties have a sales tax on home heating products.
Rockland’s repeal is expected to save homeowners $11 million in 2022, said county spokesperson Beth Cefalu.
The Westchester action comes as fuel oil prices have soared, and projections for natural gas and electricity show substantial price hikes on the way as homeowners this fall turn on the heat and don wool sweaters to keep themselves warm.
The average price for home heating oil is $5.94 a gallon, up 66% from $3.59 in 2021, according to New York State Energy Research and Development Authority. With the average U.S. home burning 519 gallons of heating oil a year, their oil bill would rise from $1,863 to $3,082 − almost $1,200.
"It's a terrible time in this business," said Erik Pope, general manager of Burke Energy in Hawthorne. "We are fielding lots of angry calls. The local company that delivers gets the brunt of the anger. It reminds me of 1998 when heating oil went up to $7 a gallon."
Kerosene prices have risen even higher for those who use that petroleum-based product to heat their homes. The average price of kerosene is $7 a gallon, up 77% from 2021, when it went for an average of $3.94 a gallon.
Those who use propane to heat their homes will see the smallest increase, with propane costs up just 7%.
In September, Con Edison predicted its natural gas customers would see an increase of 32% while electricity costs were expected to rise 22% over last winter’s charges.
Latimer and Board of Legislators Chairperson Catherine Borgia, D-Ossining, announced the Westchester sales tax holiday this week at a press conference in Ossining, at the home of Omar Lopez and Grace O’Shaughnessy.
Borgia said she has heard from homeowners worried about the sticker shock from their heating-oil deliveries.
“We know residents are scared about the increases on the cost of heating their homes,” she said. “We know people needed some relief, and this is a way to provide some relief.”
Lopez said the sales-tax savings will help.
“Families like ours are feeling the squeeze − at the grocery store, at the gas pump,” he said. “We have two young kids, so with child care, it’s tough. These savings could mean another Christmas present, another possibility to have a conservation that’s a little less about the economic moment and more about spending time together.”
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This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Westchester will halt sales tax on residential energy for 3 months
