INTRODUCTION
A DNR (Department of Natural Resources) payment is often presented to the local unit as a percent of the total payment due for DNR or Paid in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) tax bills. When applied as a regular partial payment, the PILT bill has historically remained on the roll as Unpaid. However, the bills are considered to be paid in full by the state, and PILT bills are never part of the delinquent bill process, so this status is technically incorrect.
Using two payment methods, ZPLT and ZNPH in Pontem Tax Administration and Pontem Tax Receipting, users can apply these payments to PILT tax bills and adjust the unpaid balance, setting their status to ‘Paid.’
STEP ONE: Filtering for PILT Tax Bills
To process these partial payments select ‘Tax Bills and Collections’ and click on the ‘PILT Pay List ‘button in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen.
Use the ‘Advanced’ filter to retrieve the PILT bills using the ‘Selected Tax Roll Type’ of ‘DNR’ or the ‘Levy Exemption’ code of “XAGRI” in the ‘Districts’ selection box. This will provide a list of all the unpaid PILT records (the user may also want to filter by a particular tax period).
NOTE: XNPHP is used to define parcels and bills for Senior Citizen Housing which are also paid for by the DNR.
STEP TWO: Posting PILT Payments
Double click on a bill to be paid from the list in the lower portion of the screen. The ‘Tax Receipt Distribution Edit’ form will immediately appear. Here the user will post the payment amount to be applied on a levy by levy basis.
Click on ‘Pay Distributed Amount’ when data entry is complete to return to the ‘Tax Bill Payment List. ’ Continue selecting the bills which will be paid in this session and apply the payments, levy by levy for each.
STEP THREE: Preparing Receipts
Click ‘Prepare Receipts’ to post receipt comments, reference number, and complete the payment processing. Notice the information entered in the fields labeled ‘Reference number’ and ‘Receipt Comments ‘carry forward to the ‘Next Receipt’.’
At the last receipt, click ‘Post Payment.’
NOTE: The Payment Method defaults to ‘ZPLT – PILT Payment.’
STEP FOUR: Printing Receipts
At the final screen choose whether to print the receipts or not. Here you will see receipts with the receipt number prefixed with the letter E (meaning they are regular payment receipts).
The ‘PILT Adjustments’ tool will trigger upon closing the ‘Print Receipts’ screen. This will allow the user to immediately adjust the ‘Yet Due’ amounts off the PILT bill. This is done as no more funds will be forthcoming to fully pay the yet due amounts. As PILT bills are not added to delinquent tax bills this option provides a way to change the status to ‘Paid.’ This process will create receipts with a prefix of M (receipts which underwent a ‘Miscellaneous’ edit).
The ‘PILT Adjustments’ tool is available on the ‘Tools’ tab in ‘Tax Bills and Collections.’
The following filter screen will appear for you to define the list of bills to adjust:
In the list view of the ‘Tax Receipts’ primary task, you will see both the payment receipts and the adjusting receipts from this transaction:
Congratulations! You have just successfully applied payments to PILT tax bills.
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