| By Bob Weaver
If you or any member of your family owns royalty rights, of if you are concerned about the future of such ownership in West Virginia, you MUST read this entire story linked to the Charleston Gazette.
With Republicans in control of the West Virginia Legislature and the West Virginia Supreme Court, granted not far removed from the Democrat leadership of many years, there will be major changes that will drastically affect royalty ownership and many counties in the Mountain State.
It is most likely the Supreme Court will side with state legislators and their corporate bosses, many who have vested interests, those outfits spending millions of dollars lobbying to get their way.
They will be rallying that such action will make West Virginia great again and bring new jobs.
1. The rules to be changed that extractors have have their way with royalty owners, including deducting for production and other costs when drilling, and abolishing further rights related to horizontal drilling, abdicating the historical Tawney case.
2. Eliminating the long held Inventory Tax on corporations that buy and develop the state's natural resources, a loss of multi-millions of dollars that support state and county government, meaning that the tax burden would be shifted to individual taxpayers.
See THROUGH THE GLASS: REPUBLICAN LEGISLATORS ELIMINATING INVENTORY TAX? - Calhoun Would Get Zero Dollars From $94 Million Compressor Project
3. Pushing more legislation that citizens (like Tawney) can no longer sue the big corporations without first engaging in costly arbitration, after a ten year lobbying effort calling West Virginia a "Judicial Hellhole."
To understand the issues, you MUST read this article by ProPublica:
Royalty disputes continue as West Virginia's natural gas industry booms
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