Tax Increment Financing

Do I need to complete the report on this new UR area?

If you had an Urban Renewal Area that existed in the previous fiscal year but it was not set up in the Property Valuation System because it was not dividing revenue, please contact us. We will work with you to add the area into the system. For most in this situation, we anticipate that you would complete little of the report. Most would primarily only complete the basic information about the area as well as the provision of any applicable reference documents (plan, map, perhaps ordinance).

Are the completed reports available for public view?

Yes, the reports and data from the reports will be available to the public. In addition, the Legislative Services Agency is required to report to the Iowa General Assembly on the data in mid February of each year.

Yes, the system allows for any or all of the designations to be selected.

Rather than returning the money to the treasurer?

Yes, as long as it is in the same UR area, and you use Form 3 to reduce the amount of future TIF revenues being received to pay the internal loan.

Or does that fluctuate over the duration of the TIF project?

There are two likely possibilities. We suggest you contact your TIF counsel to determine which they recommend. The first is the LMI % or amount requirement is set when the urban renewal area is first approved. The second is the LMI % or amount requirement is set when the specific TIF project is first approved.

No, Infrastructure and Road projects are exempted from this analysis.

If your city/county had an Urban Renewal Area that existed during the fiscal year which ended June 30 of this year, an Annual Urban Renewal Report will be required.

How do I access the Annual Urban Renewal Report?

The report can be accessed via the Urban Renewal Report System.  A letter indicating a username and password had been provided to access the system.  If you are unable to find this letter, please contact the DOM staff listed for Tax Increment Financing.

How do I submit the report?

Your report would be considered submitted when you come back into the system and enter in the date the governing body approved the report and select “Submit to Department of Management”. You do not submit anything hardcopy.

When is the annual urban renewal report due?

The Annual Urban Renewal Report (AURR) for the fiscal year ending June 30 is due to the department and Iowa Legislative Services Agency by the following December 1. The AURR is a report of all urban renewal activities, balances, revenues and expenditures for the fiscal year.

How is the report approved - motion or resolution?

A simple motion by the city council (city report) or board of supervisors (county report) is all that is needed.

What timeframe is covered by the Annual Urban Renewal Report?

The Annual Urban Renewal Report is a backward-looking report focusing on the structure of your Urban Renewal Areas, projects and debt of the area and revenue coming in, payments coming out of your TIF Special Revenue Fund during the prior fiscal year ended June 30.  Example: the AURR due on 12/01/2015 covers 07/01/2014 - 06/30/2015.

If we have an outstanding GO bond that only a portion of the interest is being paid by TIF, do I just report the amount outstanding that will be paid by the TIF, not the total outstanding GO bond?

Yes, you are reporting debt that is eligible to be repaid with TIF revenues. You report the debt by debt instrument and report the outstanding balance as of the beginning of the reported fiscal year.

Keep in mind you will need to take into account what you certified as TIF debt. If you certified the entire GO bond as TIF debt, even if your intent is perhaps not to repay the whole amount from TIF, you would reported the entire GO bond as TIF debt on this report. If you certified an entire bond as TIF debt but your intent is not to repay the whole bond with TIF revenues, you likely need to consider decertifying some of that bond as TIF debt.

If we have restated our plan, do we upload the restated plan and corresponding amendments or original plan, restated plan, and amendments?

You would combine whatever documents are needed to reflect the area as it looked in the reported fiscal year into one PDF file and upload that one file for your plan. You are only able to uploaded one PDF file for the plan, one PDF file for the map and one PDF file for the ordinance. If you have difficulty combing multiple documents into one PDF, please let us know and we can assist.

If you have a jobs component in a developer agreement, but the entity did not meet the requirement for it and is therefore not getting any payment, do we still include it?

You would still report on it if your agreement is in effect. Therefore it would be listed on the Project and Debt tabs and you would report on it with the Jobs tab. But if you did not have expenditures for it in the reported fiscal year, then you would not show anything for it on the Non-Rebate Expenditures tab. You could make a note on the Notes tab to further explain the specifics of the situation, if you would like to clarify it.

Engineering fees can be recorded either way. Just be consistent.

There is a “Notes” tab. In that tab you can type whatever info you feel is helpful for someone reviewing the report and I would suggest indicating in there that you have not used TIF since the area was set up.

The report has a statutory deadline of December 1. You have to complete it prior to being able to publish and adopt your budget or the Department of Management cannot certify your taxes. In addition, the Legislative Services Agency will pull data for their report to the Iowa General Assembly sometime shortly after December 1 and list out those that were not completed at the time they pull the data.

Yes, re-estimate the total due to pay in full on a yearly basis.

Recently we consolidated three of our TIF areas into one - do I report them as one consolidated TIF area or three separate areas for the Annual Urban Renewal Report?

It depends on when they were combined. The Annual Urban Renewal Report is a backwards-looking report. So, for example, the report for FY15 is reporting on whatever the areas looked like through FY15. If you just made the change after the end of the fiscal year, your would report three separate areas.

Should administrative expenses be input in aggregate for the life of the bond (which would require some estimating) or just for the fiscal year in question, with a plan to annually input actual administrative costs in future years?

Debt would be reportable on the Debt tab when it is certifiable. It would become certifiable when there is formal documentation of that debt approval (in other words, an approved internal loan for administrative expenses).

For refundings of existing debt, for the old debt, you would only show the amount of payment for the fiscal year being reported. The new debt will show amount due for all future fiscal years. Please contact us for assistance reflecting refunding in your report.

The principal and interest entered on the debt/obligations tab should be the amount of principal or interest needed to pay in full as of the beginning of the fiscal year. For debt incurred during the fiscal year, enter the amount of principal and interest due to pay the debt in full at the time the debt is incurred.

The uploaded documents (plan, map and ordinance) are pulled forward. Projects are pulled forward unless you indicated the project was both Physically Complete and Payments Complete (meaning the debt used to pay for the project was completely paid). If both have “Y” selected they will be deleted the next year from the list. Debt is also pulled forward unless you had indicated a past year as the final year of payment as well as the general information for Rebate and Non Rebate Expenditures. Other general information, such as the Type of UR and the Date Revenue First Received, etc. on the tax district pages is retained from year to year and is not removed.

Your total outstanding debt will need to be entered as well the amount of any expenditures made during the year. You will also need to complete the Fiscal Recap page for all UR areas. Obviously any new debt, projects, etc., undertaken during the year will need to be entered.

The amount of money spent by property owners on physical improvements or expansion of employees in the Urban Renewal Area during the fiscal year can be entered in this blank.

The Fair Market Value (FMV) of the 6 lots will eventually satisfy a part of the total LMI requirement. Until the Lots are distributed, though, the FMV of the lots would need to be included in the LMI requirement. As the lots are distributed, the amount of the LMI requirement can be reduced by the FMV of each lot as it is given away. If the entire LMI requirement has been certified on Form 1 then the FMV of the lots should be decertified on Form 3 so the City does not over collect TIF to satisfy the LMI requirement.