The RR Program will provide monthly updates on the status of PECFA claims and the overall PECFA budget. The table below provides information on the number and value of claims submitted, the number and value of claims paid, and the remaining available funding for the fiscal year.
Below are the updated PECFA numbers for May 2017.
| Number | Value | |
| Claims Received | 68 | $357,590 |
| Claims Paid | 38 | $163,448 |
| Claims in audit line (as of May 31) | 56 | $279,340 |
| Remaining fiscal year funding | $1,030,795 |
The RR Program will provide monthly updates in the RR Report on the status of PECFA claims and the overall PECFA budget. The table below provides information on the number and value of claims submitted, the number and value of claims audited and ready for payment, and the remaining available funding.
| Number of claims in house | 32 |
| Value of claims in house | $152,393 |
| Number of claims audited and ready for payment | 8 |
| Value of claims audited and ready for payment | $22,103 |
| Current available PECFA funding | $1,212,342 |
| Total spent FY17 appropriation | $4,462,071 |
If you’re a PECFA claimant or a consultant planning to seek reimbursement for costs incurred on PECFA-eligible sites, you’re reminded of two very important deadlines:
The DNR considers the date of submittal to the DNR to be the date a claim is emailed, postmarked, faxed or hand-delivered. If you plan to hand-deliver a claim, the DNR suggests getting a date stamp from the DNR staff person who receives the claim as a best management practice.
It would be most advantageous for sites in the PECFA program to have a Site Investigation and Remedial Action Options Report complete and submitted to DNR by now in order to be on track for closure by the June 30, 2020 if reimbursement is being sought.
Your DNR Project Manager can assist you with meeting that deadline.
Claims to the PECFA program are subject to open record requests. In order to keep personally identifiable information protected, the RR Program requests that you submit your W-9 and STAR Vendor forms as two individual PDFs separate from your claim documents. This will allow program staff to easily delete these files and the sensitive information after verification.
Both the W-9 (IRS Form W-9) and the STAR Vendor form (DOA-6457) can be found on the RR Program’s PECFA web page (http://dnr.wi.gov/topic/brownfields/pecfa.html) under the “Documents” tab near the top of the page.
On March 27, the Committee on Joint Finance approved the DNR’s request for additional PECFA funds for FY17. The funding will cover the claims already submitted to the RR Program (a backlog of almost $700,000), as well as the claims to be submitted between now and June 30, 2017. The DNR received the funding on April 19 and has begun to pay claims. All back-logged claims should be paid by May 5.
180 Days to Submit Claims
Claimants and consultants planning to seek reimbursement for costs incurred on PECFA-eligible projects are reminded that they have only 180 days from the day the expense was incurred to submit the claim to the Department. There is no extension on that deadline. If you hand-deliver a claim, please make sure to get a date stamp from the Department staff receiving the claim. In addition to the date it was hand delivered and date stamped, the Department will also consider the date of submittal to the Department to be the date it’s emailed, faxed or postmarked.
IRS Form 1099
PECFA applicants and/or claimants will receive a Form 1099-G from the Wisconsin Department of Revenue each year they receive a reimbursement. However, they do not have to pay taxes on PECFA reimbursement money. Although a taxpayer is not required to disclose the fact that an amount is being excluded from income on their return, the Form 1099-G is provided to the IRS. Therefore, it is in the taxpayer’s interest to include language on the return to explain the purpose of the reimbursement and how the amount is treated for tax purposes, making correspondence and/or invoices from the IRS less likely. Consultants and PECFA agents should provide this information to applicants/claimants.
Here’s an example of an applicable disclosure statement: “In (year) I received payments from the Wisconsin PECFA fund in the amount of $(amount). This payment is a reimbursement for costs incurred for environmental cleanup of gas/oil spill on my property. The $(amount) is excludable under Internal Revenue Code Section 126.”
Informational papers from the Wisconsin Legislative Fiscal Bureau are now online. The nearly-100 documents updated for 2017 cover a range of topics from general fund taxes to justice to transportation. Included in the revised documents under Environmental Programs are two from Remediation and Redevelopment: Contaminated Lands and Brownfields Cleanup and Petroleum Environmental Cleanup Fund Award (PECFA) Program.
Printed copies of these and other papers are available in limited quantities from the Fiscal Bureau office at One East Main Street, Suite 301, in Madison. If you’d like five or more copies of a specific, please contact the Bureau at 608-266-3847 to make arrangements for those copies.
