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Show Local Governments Receive PILT Payments - The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) will send $18.6 million in Payments-In-Lieu-of-Taxes (PILT) payments to Utah's 29 counties. For fiscal year 2003, Garfield County will receive $416,983, up from $375,382 in 2002. . "As Utah counties are forced to provide essential services with limited resources, PILT payments help take the sting out of this burden" said Utah's Senator Bob Bennett. Payments-In-Lieu-of-Taxes were first authorized by Congress in 1976. : Administered by the BLM, PILT payments are intended to off-set the loss of tax revenues due to the tax exempt status of federal lands. The payments also help counties provide services required under the myriad of unfunded federal mandates. As a member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on the Interior, Bennett has worked to successfully increase PILT funding for the past seven years. Bennett added that as the largest landowner in the state of Utah ownership totaling nearly 70 percent the federal government has not been paying its share of property taxes like any other landowner would. In nearly every instance, these lands would be worth thousands of dollars per acre if held in private pri-vate ownership and responsible to local tax rolls. Other southern Utah counties received: Kane ($499,106), Washington ($1,516,570), Iron ($1,490,888), Beaver ($504,017), Piute ($112,055), San Juan ($769,099), Grand ($622,831), Sevier ($931,395), and Wayne ($233,507). |
