Comments about ‘Utah, counties get $131M in royalties’

Where do the royalties come from? I hope its not some big redistribution of one tax payers money to another taxpayer.

I sure wish the state could run on its mineral revenues and stay OUT of my pocket. I think Wyoming does...as they have no state tax. But Utah's are way too high, it would sure help out in these hard times if the state did away with income tax!

The economy is horrible. People are losing their jobs left and right. Are budgets are at shortfalls in every state. But I guarantee some enviromentalist will read this and say we are horrible for drilling, mining and so forth. I just love tree huggers.

No importantly,
Where do they go?

Is this in addition to the lobbying of politicians??

drill here, drill now, pay less

That's it? What a bargain! Utah Leg. sold out our resources to the lowest bidder.

Sad thing is that where coal, oil, gas, gold, timber, and other precious metals are concerned, the U.S. gets a smaller benefit for the country than many 3rd world nations. It is a big benefit to corporations from Canada, the UK, Australia and others that do the extraction on our government lands.

It would take politicians willing to put our country first over the PAC campaign contributions, parties and dinners, trips and cash from lobbyists, and, of course cashing-in with an Exec position or fat lobbyist job whenever they leave office.

But the culture of political corruption runs too deep to expect anything other than "business as usual."

Why don't we do what Alaska does and gives its residents royalty commissions on it natural resources. Who do we need to petition. We let wind farms set up on Utah land and who gets the power....California, because California's don't want to have the eye soar of the wind generators on their land. Doesn't seem fair. If we don't get the power at least we could get commissions off of them. What do you thinnnnnkkkk.

Dooley

Same old song, sung by the same old persons or groups that does not want anything developed and our standard of living improved

Howard Stephenson wants to raise food tax, how about increasing royalties on these extraction companies. Kennecott is making a killing now turning all their extra property into real estate development at Rio Tinto. But the big companies buy off the legislature so thats why we get tax on food instead.

Compare this to $59 million PROFIT the State of Utah made in FY 2009 on liquor. Voluntarily. From citizens.

@Become Alaska -- the sight of windmills makes my eyes soar!

Do any of you realize that we don't tax coal in this state because a legislator was bought off by the coal companies? If you want to lower other taxes, like food, then implement an excise tax on coal. There's an excise tax on brine shrimp, for heaven's sake, so why not one on coal?

Just which legislator was bought off? Do you have proof? Enquiring minds want to know.

Alaska has way more resources under development than utah, and way fewer people. That's how the royalty payments are possible. As for the sights for 'soar' eyes, those wind turbines, of which there are many in california, do pay off. There are royalties to land owners, taxes, construction and maintenance jobs, infrastructure, etc.

I am confused, you talk about excise taxes and severence taxes but the article is about royalities.

I thought a royality was went you went into someone else's land and removed something like a mineral and you paid a royality based on how much you took.

From my observations most businesses get a real deal and i certainly wouldn't let you come on my land and extract stuff for what they are paying.

The miner or other operator certainly has expenses in extracting, transporting and selling it and is entitled to a reasonable profit for his investment BUT from what I have heard some are making big bucks and not paying much royality for the extraction that they do on lands that don't belong to them.

Deseret News, please publish a story that will give us some facts and figures and examples of royality payments, costs & profits so we can judge wheter Utah is "getting a good deal" from the royality fees that were collected and distributed or should they have been twice as much as if they had done the extraction off another companies private land.

Bet they can account for every penny of it. Why can't they do so for the Navajo trust money from oil & gas?