Court Opinion

ID: 9649377
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 14:51:11.327071+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:53:17.103783
License: Public Domain

COLINS, Judge,
Dissenting.
I must respectfully dissent from the erudite opinion of the majority.
As correctly noted by the majority, the General Assembly explicitly recognized the taxing of coal interests as part of the real estate. However, as also was correctly noted, while oil and gas are minerals, unlike coal, they are fugacious in nature. It is possible for an owner of adjacent land to extract oil and gas reserves which lay beneath another’s real estate without ever entering upon the neighboring land.
What Fayette County has enacted is a de facto tax on oil and gas royalty rights without any legislative authority. Only the General Assembly may authorize a taxing scheme for non-producing oil and gas interests, and it has clearly chosen not to do so.
Therefore, the order of the Court of Common Pleas of Fayette County must be reversed.