Clay-Union Electric tax payments help fund local schools

Clay-Union Electric is a non-profit cooperative and does in fact pay taxes. One of those taxes paid helps supports school districts that are within its service area. Clay-Union Electric under South Dakota law pays 2 percent of its gross revenues from sales of electricity in its service area.

Thanks to this law, the school districts in Clay Union Electric's service area will share in a total of $105,765 in tax funds that come as a result of the receipts for electric power sold to members of the cooperative. Also contributing to this tax payment amount were East River Electric and Basin Electric.

In addition to the gross receipts tax paid by Basin Electric, which is the generation and transmission supplier for Clay-Union Electric, Basin Electric also pays property taxes on the Spirit Mound Peaking Station, which is located north of Vermillion on Highway 19 also in Clay County.

The gross revenue tax paid by Clay-Union Electric is distributed to the different school districts through the county treasurers' offices of each county. The tax is calculated on the gross electric revenue billed to the members of the cooperative within each of the school districts. The charts show the breakdown of the gross revenue tax paid to each school district and paid in each county.