PUBLIC NOTICE Federal Communications Commission 445 12th St., S.W. Washington, D.C. 20554 News Media Information 202 / 418-0500 Internet: http://www.fcc.gov TTY: 1-888-835-5322 Released September 2, 2009 DA 09-1841 Payment Methods and Procedures For Fiscal Year 2009 Regulatory Fees Licensees and regulatees who are required to pay annual regulatory fees pursuant to 47 U.S.C. 159 (Public Law 103-66) may make their Fiscal Year (FY) 2009 fee payments immediately but no later than 11:59 PM, ET, on September 22, 20091. The Commission is required by Congress to collect regulatory fees to recover the regulatory costs associated with its enforcement, policy and rulemaking, user information, and international activities. Licensees and regulatees are assessed fees dependent on a variety of factors, such as the number of subscribers, number of assigned telephone numbers, or revenue, etc. To find out how FY 2009 regulatory fees were determined for your organization, refer to the industry-appropriate section under the heading Who Owes Fees & What is My Fee FY2009 (http://www.fcc.gov/fees/regfees.html). MANDATORY USE OF FEE FILER Beginning this year, licensees and regulatees must begin the process of filing their annual regulatory fee obligation by entering the Commission’s Fee Filer system with a valid FRN and password. Only Form 159-E vouchers generated from Fee Filer will be permitted to be submitted with regulatory fee payments to U.S. Bank. There are many benefits to licensees and regulatees for using the Commission’s Fee Filer system: 1) expeditious submission of payment; 2) no postage or courier costs (when paid electronically through Fee Filer); 3) fewer errors caused by illegible handwriting or payments submitted without an FRN number or the appropriate data attributes (e.g., payers will avoid receiving delinquency notices because of payment submission errors); 4) improved recordkeeping and payment reconciliation; 5) reduced administrative burden on both licensees and regulatees on Commission staff in processing regulatory fee payments; 6) less expensive than a wire transfer; and 7) a reduced burden of preparing, mailing, and storing paper documents. 1 47 C.F.R. §1.1164 2 HARDCOPY BILLS WILL NO LONGER BE MAILED BY THE FCC Beginning in FY 2009, the FCC will not mail hardcopy bills for the following fee categories: Interstate Telecommunications Service Providers (ITSPs) Please follow the guidance provided in the Fact Sheet: What You Owe—Interstate Telecommunications Service Providers for FY 2009. Satellite Space Station Licensees Please follow the guidance provided in the Fact Sheet: What You Owe—International and Satellite Services Licensees for FY 2009. Earth Station Licensees Please follow the guidance provided in the Fact Sheet: What You Owe—International and Satellite Services Licensees for FY 2009. Cable Television Relay Service (CARS) Licensees Please follow the guidance provided in the Fact Sheet: What You Owe—Cable Television Systems for FY 2009. MAKE SURE YOUR FCC REGISTRATION NUMBER (FRN) IS CURRENT IN CORES It is very important for licensees and regulatees to have a current and valid FRN address on file in the Commission’s Registration System (CORES). To file and pay regulatory fees, licensees will also need to have their FRN passwords available when entering the Commission’s electronic filing and payment system (Fee Filer). In some instances, it will reduce a licensee’s reporting burden to use a specific FRN and password that is linked to a particular regulatory fee bill to enter Fee Filer. If you do not have an FRN, please go to www.fcc.gov and click the link to FCC Registration Number (FRN) Commission Registration System (CORES) to obtain one. LIMITATIONS ON CREDIT CARD TRANSACTIONS The U.S. Treasury will reject Credit Card transactions greater than $99,999.99 from a single credit card in a single day, in accordance with U.S. Treasury Bulletin No. 2005-03. If you need to pay $100,000.00 or more, then you must pay via a check, electronic debit from your bank account, or wire transfer. ELECTRONIC FILING AND PAYMENT PROCEDURES (FOR ALL ENTITIES) You will need to enter the FCC’s Fee Filer system to begin the process of filing your FY 2009 regulatory fees. The Fee Filer web application is located at: http://www.fcc.gov/feefiler. After logging in with your FRN and password, select the Regulatory Fees option to display your billed and non-billed regulatory fee obligations. It is the responsibility of the licensee to determine the fullest extent of their regulatory fee obligation. In addition, the FY 2009 Regulatory Fee Report and Order also concluded 3 that in FY 2009, regulatory fee bills will no longer be mailed to the regulatee.2 When you enter Fee Filer, fee information associated with your FRN will be presented. You may make adjustments, corrections, additions, or deletions to this automatically presented information, if necessary. Please note that you are required to report and pay for all regulatory fees that you owe, regardless of whether those fees are presented through this feature. For technical assistance regarding the use of Fee Filer, you may call the Commission’s Financial Operations Help Desk at (877) 480-3201 and select Option 4. PAYMENT METHODS Licensees and regulatees may pay their regulatory fees by any of the following methods; · Check · Money order · Credit card (online or by mail) · Wire transfer · ACH (Automated Clearing House) / debit from bank account (online) via fee filer Check or Money Order: · For fee payments by check or money order, please make the instrument payable to the Federal Communications Commission. Please note that only Form 159-E vouchers generated from Fee Filer will be permitted to be submitted with regulatory fee payments to U.S. Bank. Note: US Bank’s/Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland – will convert check payments drawn on personal checking accounts into an electronic funds transfer. “Electronic fund transfer” is the term used to refer to the process in which we electronically instruct your financial institution to transfer funds from your account to our account, rather than processing your check. By sending your completed, signed check to us, you authorize us to copy your check and to use the account information from your check to make an electronic fund transfer from your account for the same amount as the check. If the electronic fund transfer cannot be processed for technical reasons, you authorize us to process the copy of your check. Credit Card (online or by mail): · The FCC accepts these credit cards: Visa, Mastercard, Discover and American Express. · To pay online by credit card, you must first submit your electronic filing information via the FCC’s Fee Filer web application; you will then have the option to pay online by choosing the “Pay by Credit Card” option. · Limitations on credit card transactions: The U.S. Treasury will reject credit card transactions greater than $99,999.99 from a single credit card in a single day, in accordance with U.S. Treasury Bulletin No. 2005-03. · When paying by credit card by mail (must be accompanied with a Form 159-E), you must complete both: 2 See Assessment and Collection of Regulatory Fees for Fiscal Year 2009, Report and Order, 74 FR at 40092, paragraphs 24-26 (August 11, 2009). 4 o the “Credit Card Payment Information” section with all the requested credit card information along with your signature, and o the “Certification” section by signing and dating the bottom of Form 159-E. Wire Transfer: A wire transfer is a transaction that you initiate through your bank. It authorizes your bank to wire funds from your account to the Federal Reserve Bank, NYC (TREAS NYC). All payments made by wire transfer (payable to the Federal Communications Commission) must be supported by a completed Form 159-E remittance voucher, which must be faxed to FCC Government Lockbox – Regulatory Fees (U.S. Bank in St. Louis, Missouri) at (314) 418-4232 at least one hour before the wire transfer on the same business day, so as to not delay crediting your account. Due to Federal Reserve process, most wire transfers initiated after 6:00 p.m. (EDT) will be credited the next business day. Indicate on the top of the remittance instrument "Wire Transfer - Regulatory Fee Payment." The Form 159-E generated from Fee Filer will already have the Lockbox number (“979084”) pre-printed on the form. When initiating the wire transfer, please provide your bank with the following information to complete the transfer: ABA Routing Number: 021030004 Receiving Bank: TREAS NYC 33 Liberty St. New York, NY 10045 BNF: FCC/ACCT--27000001 OBI Field: (Skip one space between each information item)\"REGULATORY PAY" PAYER FRN (Exactly as on remittance instrument) PAYER NAME (Exactly as on remittance instrument) Phone: (Daytime Phone #, exactly as on remittance instrument) VOUCHER NUMBER (Exactly as on remittance (Form 159-E) instrument) ACH Payments (Debit from Bank Account) · To pay online from a bank account, you must first submit your electronic filing information via the FCC’s Fee Filer web application; you will then have the option to pay online by choosing the “Pay from Bank Account” option. · You may choose to pay from one of the following types of accounts: Personal Checking, Personal Savings, Business Checking, and Business Savings. · For purposes of meeting the filing deadline, the FCC will consider the payment to be received at the time your account information is successfully accepted; however, funds may not clear from your bank account for up to 2 business days. Licensees and Regulatees are responsible for obtaining confirmation from their financial institution that their payment was successfully debited from their account. 5 Your payment by Check, Money Order, or Credit Card must be accompanied by Form 159-E generated from Fee Filer: Mail to: Federal Communications Commission Regulatory Fees P.O. Box 979084 St. Louis, MO 63197-9000 Courier delivery address: Federal Communications Commission Regulatory Fees C/O U.S. Bank – Government Lockbox #979084 SL-MO-C2-GL 1005 Convention Plaza St. Louis, MO 63101 Attn: FCC Government Lockbox DE MINIMUS FEE PAYMENT LIABILITY Licensees and Regulatees whose total FY 2009 regulatory fee liability, including all categories of fees for which payment is due, amounts to less than $10 will be exempted from payment of FY 2009 regulatory fees. OTHER QUESTIONS REGARDING REGULATORY FEES To help you understand your regulatory fee obligations, the following Fact Sheets and Websites are available at http://www.fcc.gov/fees/regfees.html: FACT SHEET: WHAT YOU OWE - CABLE TELEVISION SYSTEMS—FY2009 FACT SHEET: WHAT YOU OWE - MEDIA SERVICES LICENSEES—FY2009 FCC LOOK-UP WEBSITE FOR MEDIA SERVICES LICENSEES OWING FY 2009 REGULATORY FEES FACT SHEET: WHAT YOU OWE - COMMERCIAL WIRELESS SERVICES—FY2009 FACT SHEET: WHAT YOU OWE - INTERNATIONAL AND SATELLITE SERVICES LICENSEES— FY2009 PUBLIC NOTICE: SUBMARINE CABLE SYSTEMS—FY2009, DA 09-1853 FACT SHEET: WHAT YOU OWE - INTERSTATE TELECOMMUNICATIONS SERVICE PROVIDERS—FY2009 FACT SHEET: USE OF THE FCC REGISTRATION NUMBER (FRN) IS MANDATORY—FY2009 6 FACT SHEET: WAIVERS, REDUCTIONS AND DEFERMENTS OF REGULATORY FEES—FY2009 FACT SHEET: REGULATORY FEE EXEMPTIONS—FY2009 ADDITIONAL INFORMATION Please contact the Commission’s Financial Operations Help Desk with inquiries regarding regulatory fees at (877) 480-3201 Option 4 or e-mail your inquiries to ARINQUIRIES@FCC.GOV Public Notices and Fact Sheets can be ordered by calling (888) 225-5322. Materials can also be obtained by writing to: Federal Communications Commission, ATTN: Consumer Information Center, 445 12th Street, S.W., Washington, D.C., 20554. - FCC -