This bill adds a new section to chapter 82.16 RCW creating a new tax credit against the tax imposed under that chapter for light and power businesses and gas distribution businesses. It allows two types of credits in a fiscal year — a credit equal to 50% of qualifying contributions and a credit equal to 50% of billing discounts — but only if the dollar amount in that year exceeds 125% of the amount in fiscal year 2000 (or 125% of the first fiscal year in which such activity occurred if none occurred in FY2000). The total credit a business may take in a fiscal year is limited to a calculated base credit and the total statewide credits may not exceed $2,500,000. Credits must be claimed in the fiscal year the billing reduction is made, cannot generate refunds, and unused credits expire. The act prescribes administrative procedures and timing. The department of commerce must notify an unnamed "the department" annually by May 1 of grants received by each utility. A special 2027 schedule tied to May 8, 2027, sets short deadlines for notice, publication of base credits, application filing, and notice of available credit; beginning in 2028 an annual schedule requires publication of base credits by June 1, application filing by July 1 (late filings are disqualified), and notice to applicants by August 1. The base credit for each utility is calculated as that utility’s share of prior fiscal year grants divided by total grants for all utilities, multiplied by $2,500,000. Unused base credits are to be ratably distributed among applicants. Applications must include specified historical and anticipated amounts for billing discounts, qualifying contributions, and customer-collected funds for assistance. This is a new tax-credit statute and procedural change rather than a change to penalties. The bill includes definitions for terms such as base credit, billing discount, grant, qualifying contribution, qualifying person, and qualifying organization, requires a JLARC review as part of 2030 tax preference reviews, and requires JLARC to notify the department of revenue by June 30 each year if a credit is suspended for failure to provide requested evaluation data. The extracted text repeatedly refers to "the department" without naming which agency has the notification, publication, and application responsibilities, and it does not include a mechanism in this excerpt for verifying the fiscal year 2000 baseline amounts or the omitted chapter citations referenced elsewhere.

If enacted, electric and gas utilities could lower their state business tax bills by getting a credit equal to half of new qualifying charitable contributions or new billing discounts for low-income customers, but only when those amounts exceed a 125% threshold based on year 2000 (or the utility’s first giving year). The total credits available statewide would be capped at $2.5 million each year, allocated to utilities based on the share of grants they received in the prior year, and credits can only reduce the tax owed in the same fiscal year (unused credit expires and no refunds are paid). Utilities must apply and meet strict annual filing deadlines (with a special schedule in 2027 and a recurring schedule beginning in 2028), and missing the filing date disqualifies them for that year. The people most affected are light and power and gas distribution businesses, which may be encouraged to increase donations to qualifying energy-assistance organizations or expand customer discounts to get tax relief, but they will face new administrative work to document past and planned contributions and discounts and to meet deadlines; the Department of Commerce and an unnamed state department will have new reporting and publishing duties, and the state’s tax revenue could fall by up to $2.5 million annually. Key implementation details are unclear in the provided text—specifically which agency is the responsible “department” for calculating and awarding credits and how the FY2000 baseline figures will be verified.