Valley is top earner in federal tax program

MAT-SU — The federal government on Thursday released numbers for its annual Payment in Lieu of Taxes program and, as usual, Mat-Su received a larger slice of the pie than anyone else.

“The PILT program compensates local governments for losses in property taxes due to tax-exempt federal property within their borders. Alaska has more than 255 million acres of tax-exempt federally managed land,” reads a press release from Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s office.

The money comes form the federal Department of the Interior. All-told, $28,548,370 came to Alaska through the PILT program. Mat-Su’s share was $3,450,615. The next-highest amount went to the Kenai Peninsula Borough, which took in $2,920,626. Juneau, Bethel and Kodiak rounded out the top five, but none of them cracked $2 million.

The numbers were up slightly from last year. Mat-Su got $3,216,649 out of the program in 2013. But the rankings were more-or-less the same last year.

So why does Mat-Su get more? Robert Dillon, spokesman for Murkowski’s office, said that it has to do with the formula used to calculate the payments. It’s all based on the amount of federal land within a borough or city’s borders and, to a lesser degree, on that area’s population.

“Mat-Su is a very large borough and it encompasses most of Denali National Park so you’ve got a lot of federal land up there,” Dillon said in explaining why the Mat-Su received the lion’s share.