Housing Grant Supporting Statement PRA

Department of the Treasury

Departmental Offices

Application for Grants to States for Low-Income Housing Projects in lieu of Tax Credits

Supporting Statement and Request for Clearance

1. Circumstances necessitating the collection of information

Authorized under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), hereafter Recovery Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5), the Department of the Treasury is implementing several provisions of the Act, more specifically Division B – Tax, Unemployment, Health, State Fiscal Relief, and Other Provisions. Among these components is a program which requires Treasury to make payments, in lieu of a tax credit, to state housing credit agencies. State housing credit agencies use the funds to make subawards to finance the construction or acquisition and rehabilitation of qualified low-income buildings. The collection of information is necessary to properly identify recipients and determine the appropriate amount of funding.

2. Use of the data

The information will be used to (1) identify eligible recipients; (2)determine the appropriate amount of funding; (3) ensure compliance with applicable laws; and (4) report on the effectiveness of the program.

3. Use of information technology

Applicants will complete a PDF fillable form and return the application via email. Data from applications will be stored electronically.

4. Efforts to identify duplication

The information that will be collected may have some overlap with similar data collected under previously approved information collections for low-income housing tax credits. Where possible, any previously approved collections will be modified prior to the 2009 tax filing season.

5. Impact on small entities

Since this is a voluntary program, we anticipate no impact on small entities.

6. Consequences of less frequent collection and obstacles to burden reduction

Not applicable.

7. Circumstances requiring special information collection

Not applicable.

8. Solicitation of comments on information collection

Not applicable. This information collection is necessary to comply with the Recovery Act and is requested under the emergency processing under OMB’s PRA regulations. If we determine the information collection will be required after the six month approval, we will prepare the 60-day Federal Register Notice, for public comment.

9. Provision of payments to recordkeepers

Not applicable.

10. Assurance of confidentiality

The information collected will not contain personal identification information.

11. Justification of sensitive questions

Not applicable.

12. Estimated burden of information collection

We anticipate that the number of applicants applying for funds will be 56. It will take approximately 15 minutes to complete the application. The estimated annual burden is 14 hours.

13. Estimated total annual cost burden to respondents  

None

14. Estimated cost to the federal government.

There will be no annualized capital/start-up costs for the government to receive this information. However there will be some cost to the Treasury Department to set up the system and capability to conduct analysis on these data.

15. Reasons for change in burden

This is a new collection.

16. Plans for tabulation, statistical analysis and publication

The Treasury Department will conduct numerous types of analysis on these data. These analyses will include assessments of the effectiveness of the program (e.g. reach, amounts funded) as well as compliance checks. It is possible that a review/publication may result from these analyses. In addition, this analysis will be made available to the public for transparency.

17. Reasons why displaying the OMB expiration date is inappropriate

Display of the OMB expiration date will create confusion because this program has a limited duration.

18. Exceptions to certification requirement of OMB Form 83-I

Regarding this request for OMB approval, there are no exceptions to the certification statement in item 19 of Form 83-I.

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