(a) There is hereby levied and shall be collected an annual privilege tax upon any person engaging or continuing within this Municipality in any public service or utility business, except railroad, railroad car, express, pipeline, telephone and telegraph companies, water carriers by steamboat or steamship and motor carriers equal to gross income of the business multiplied by the respective rates as follows:
(1) Water companies, two percent (2%), except as to income received by Municipally owned water plants; (Passed 9-6-88)
(2) Electric light and power companies, four percent (4%) on sales demand charges for domestic purposes and commercial lighting and three percent (3%) on sales and demand charges for all other purposes, except as to income received by Municipally owned plants producing or purchasing electricity and distributing same. Electric light and power companies which engage in the supplying of public service but which do not generate or produce electric power shall be taxed on the gross income derived therefrom at the rate of four percent (4%) on sales and demand charges for domestic purposes and commercial lighting and three percent (3%) on sales and demand charges for all other purposes, except as to income received by Municipally owned plants provided, however, that the sale of electric power under this section shall be taxed at the rate of two percent (2%) on that portion of the gross proceeds derived from the sale of electric power to a plant location of a customer engaged in a manufacturing activity, if the contract demand at such plant location exceeds two hundred thousand kilowatts per hour in a year; provided further, that the sale of electric power under this section shall be exempt from the tax imposed by this section if separately metered and consumed in an electrolytic process for the manufacture of chlorine in this Municipality, and the rate reduction herein provided to the taxpayer shall be passed on to the manufacturer of the chlorine;
(Ord. 1989-12B. Passed 12-4-89.)
(3) Natural gas companies, two and one-half percent (2.5)%);
(4) Toll bridge companies, two percent (2%);
(5) Upon all other public service or utility business, two percent (2%).
(b) The measure of this tax shall not include gross income derived from commerce between this Municipality and the State of West Virginia or other states of the United States or between this Municipality and foreign countries. The measure of the tax under this section shall include only gross income received from the supplying of public service.
(Passed 9-6-88.)