Dalmation:
Quote:
|
The landowner is already taxed. I agree with royality taxes as well. I just don't agree with the splintered mineral rights that can be kept indefinately when the landowner is paying the bill, but the mineral rights owner is the one that can hit the jackpot.
|
I don't know that the issue of legally dividing land ownership from mineral rights can be resolved other than by national legislation. And, generally, that is always a bad idea.
Agree that the issue of dividing mineral rights endlessly through generations of a family that can't even remember what the land looks like or even where it is strange. In my family, with my generation the mineral rights are too tiny and fragmented to amount to anything. But, my father's generation do well enough that the income is certainly better than Social Security. My grandparents lived very well on nothing but royalties and some "hobby ranching" and scheming. That generation went around actively buying mineral rights all over the place from poor farmers/ranchers. Most of those efforts did not produce anything but it was like buying lottery tickets. The generation of my great grandparents was where the lottery ticket hit. That generation was fabulously wealthy for their time. But, four generations of mineral right divisions combined with a diminishment in what comes out of the ground means that it is no big deal to me and my generation. But, by now, the mineral rights are divided across relatives I don't even know. The tiny rights are miniscule.
I don't know what the "answer" is, but I prefer free market principles and private contracts to any government solution.