PILT (Payment in Lieu of Taxes)

Forty-nine percent of Wyoming is owned and managed by the Federal government. Federal lands are not subject to property taxes that support county governments and education; yet, local communities play an important role in supporting the management of federal lands. In 1976, Congress authorized federal land management agencies to share income with states and counties and provided a payment in lieu of taxes (PILT) program to help offset lost tax revenue

PILT payments are administered by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The formula for calculating PILT payments is complex. The University of Wyoming Cooperative Extension Service publication Payment in Lieu of Taxes in Wyoming  outlines, in detail, the origins of the program and how the payments are derived. Fact sheets for each county, telling how the payments were calculated in a particular year, were also published from 1998 to 2007 (see link at bottom of page). In addition, the BLM has an area on their website devoted to questions and answers on PILT payments and a PILT Home Page.

All documents are in Adobe Acrobat pdf format

Payment in Lieu of  Taxes to Wyoming Counties in 2008

After 10 years of publishing fact sheets for individual Wyoming counties, the Wyoming Economic Atlas will no longer provide this service. Instead, an all-in-one table (Table 1) will report these numbers.  

 2008 was the most unusual year for Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) in a long time. The uncertainty surrounding PILT and SRS (Secure Rural Schools, formerly USFS 25 percent payments) funding was in doubt until mid-year when Congress finally funded these programs. This initial round of funding provided these programs with slightly less than last year (See Table 1). The prorated share authorized was 62.2 per cent versus 64.7 percent for 2007. Congressional representatives and Senators from western states, including prominently the late Senator Craig Thomas from Wyoming, had been trying for years to get Congress to fully fund the PILT program to no avail.   

 The financial crisis changed all that. The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 authorized full funding for the PILT and SRS programs through 2012. Congress authorized an immediate supplemental payment to counties to bring their payments to full funding under the formula. This payment was made in November of 2008 (Table 1).

 For more information on the calculations for a specific county send an email to the Web Developer at ‘foulke’ at uwyo.edu.