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Show In Hgu tax bill to help Utah e ble for all or nearly ?U the n funds allowable on thf basis of their populations as de-t de-t termined by the 1970census. "Garfield would be eligible i for $157,850, Kane for $121,-c $121,-c 050, Millard for $244,580 t and Wayne for $74,150, for . example, and all of them . would get In lieu payments ; equal to their ceilings. Some ; examples of counties that would come very close to their allowed ceilings are: Beaver with a ceiling of $190,000, Iron with a ceiling of $365,310, Juab with a ceiling ceil-ing of $228,700, Piute with a ceiling of $58,200, Tooele with a celling of $560,170 and Washington with a ceiling ceil-ing of $410,070. Salt Lake County would be eligible for $1,000,000 on the basis of Its population, but, since there isn't as high a percentage per-centage of federal land in Salt Lake County as there Is in many other counties in Utah, Salt Lake would receive re-ceive only about $68,000. Of course, $68,000 Is still a significant amount," Rep. Howe said. The Congressman noted that counties he used In his examples are all in Utah's Second Congressional District, Dis-trict, but there are many counties in Utah's First Congressional Con-gressional District that would also benefit greatly from his bill. The House Interior Committee Com-mittee has reported out an "In lieu of tax" bill, co-sponsored co-sponsored by Congressman Allan Howe, that would increase in-crease the federal funds paid to the State of Utah by about ' $6,280,658 a year. "What this bill does," explained ex-plained Congressman Howe, ' 'Is provide a me thod of com -pensatlng counties for the fact that federally owned lands are tax exempt; the counties would get a payment pay-ment from the federal government gov-ernment 'in lieu of taxes'. This is of great importance to Utah, since our state is nearly 70 percent federally federal-ly owned. In some counties, the percentage of federally owned land Is much higher even than the statewide fig-fure, fig-fure, and this leaves some counties with very little taxable tax-able land to bring In revenue." reve-nue." Rep. Howe continued, "Of course, counties do now get some payments from the federal fed-eral government in the form of a share of such things as mineral lease royalties, Bureau Bu-reau of Land Management grazing fees and the like. But when you add up all the revenues rev-enues collected by all the counties in Utah from the current royalties, it comes out to only about $874,043 a year. Under this bill, all the counties in Utah would collectively col-lectively receive about $7,-154,701 $7,-154,701 a year." Congressman Howe originally ori-ginally introduced an "In Lieu Tax" bill early last year. "But since that time," he noted, "the bill has gone through several revisions and refinements and what we have now reported out of th Interior Committee, o; which I serve, is a commit tee version of the bill tha provides a method of com pensating counties where th( federal government is a taj exempt 'landlord', while a' the same time answering the concerns of states where fed eral ownership of land is minimal. Under my original bill, counties would have simply received a payment equal to what they would have gotten from a private landowner land-owner if federal lands were In private hands, but this formula proved unworkable for a variety of reasons. Under Un-der the present bill, counties will receive a flat payment per acre and there is a ceiling ceil-ing on how much a county can receive. The ceiling is based on the population of the county." Rep. Howe explained that counties could opt to take a payment of 75? per acre, in which case they would have to make deductions for payments pay-ments they currently receive from the federal government, or they could take a flat payment pay-ment of 10? per acre with no deductions. "For some counties, such as Garfield, Kane, Millard and Wayne counties in Utah, the 10? per acre payment, while it sounds low, would actually give them the best deal," the Congressman observed. "Counties would also have the option to refuse in lieu payments and simply contin-ue contin-ue receiving the federal fees they now get if that's to their best advantage." Congressman Howe explained ex-plained that the ceiling on how much a county can receive re-ceive through in lieu payments pay-ments is based on a sliding scale that takes into account ac-count the size of the population popula-tion that the payments will go to. "For instance," he said, "a county with a population pop-ulation of 5,000 or less could receive a payment equal to its population times $50. As population increases, the amount a county could receive re-ceive per person decreases until you reach the top of the scale, at which point counties with populations of 50,000 or more would receive re-ceive a payment equal to their populations times $20." Rep. Howe pointed out that there are several counties in Utah that would be eligi- |
