Had a client in New Jersey who was convinced they were being overcharged on sales tax because there were two tax line items on their PSE&G bill. Turns out one was sales tax and the other was the municipal franchise fee. These are completely different charges — the franchise fee is a payment the utility makes to the municipality for the right to use public rights of way, and it gets passed through to customers. It is not a tax in the legal sense and is not subject to tax exemptions. Spent half a day explaining this to the client before they accepted it.
Client confused franchise fee with sales tax — they are not the same
This comes up all the time. In New Jersey you also have the Societal Benefits Charge, the Transitional Energy Facility Assessment, and various other line items that look like taxes but are actually regulatory surcharges. Clients see 6-7 line items beyond the basic energy charge and assume half of them are errors. Part of our job is educating the client about what is and is not a legitimate charge.