There is another simple solution to exempt landowners from the tax. Let the companies deduct the royalty owner share of the gas produced before calculating the tax.
 Example. Company produces and sells 60bcf in one month. They get $2 for the gas. They subtract the landowner share of gas. Say 13%.
  Now if the state demands the company pay the landowners share of the tax there would be a serious contractual legal problem.

  I suggested that same solution more than a year ago. Its all there in black print. Check it. Yaw and Turzai will bob and weave. But things can change.
 

Acknowledged

I think I DO recall your having made that suggestion, macal.

But the larger point is that Wolf will never agree to any form of severance tax which, as a practical matter, exempts us landowners.  He might agree to something which will be challenged in court, whereafter we lose and Wolf goes "so sorry but not my fault".

PA landowners are most assuredly NOT part of Wolf's constituency.  He is for the city people and some suburban people.  Wolf does not give a damn what happens to us.  If he can steal our money and redistribute it to the cities he is having a good day.

Yep.... lets just modify an already signed lease, take that to court and see where it ends up, oh yea just taking more landowner money with something that will never fly, kinda like royalty ripoff

  True Duff, but there are ways to exempt landowners. I don't expect the companies to pay the tax on the royalty owners gas. The state would have to let them deduct the royalty share of the gas and then pay the tax only on their share .
 

  True Duff, but there are ways to exempt landowners. I don't expect the companies to pay the tax on the royalty owners gas. The state would have to let them deduct the royalty share of the gas and then pay the tax only on their share .

No disagreement with that, at least not quickly.  But it misses the point:

Point is, while there might be several legal ways for Wolf to protect landowners from his severance tax, he has not announced support for any of those approaches.  Instead he is saying the new law should, in effect, seek to overturn leases.  Wolf promotes that approach knowing it never will fly.  Obama used the same sort of ruse when he LOUDLY proclaimed people would be able to keep their doctors and plans.  Obama knew that was a lie.  Wolf also knows he is lying, but he does not care so long as enough people support him to where he gets his severance tax passed into law.

Once a PA severance tax goes into effect, it will remain in effect long after we ALL are dead, including Wolf.  But he will die with a smile on his ugly face knowing he was successful in screwing over landowners and redistributing our money to the city people who support him.

We all know it would never involve public sentiment ? And if it did , Royalty Owners are enormously outnumbered. It would be entirely left up to the state legislature. The only reason the severance tax has not been passed, is the millions industry lobbyist have spent heading the tax off. If only landowners paid it, it would have been law. from day one.   

  Wax, I think you hit the nail on the head. These companies came into Pennsylvania with their lobbyists and all kind of experience doing business in all these different states. Pennsylvania was basically clueless on how to handle this wave of drilling. The lobbyists did what they do. They grease the politicians.

    I think we are going to see a pretty good decline in the impact fees as these laterals go through multiple units and stretch well over 10,000 feet.
  The impact fee collects on each well. Wells used to be 5 or 6 thousand feet. Basically they are double that and cuts into revenue because less wells will be needed to drain the gas.

   We will see how it plays out.

Here's what happens with severance taxes.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/kentucky-sheriff-suspends-law-enforcement-over-lack-of-funding-folks-lock-your-doors
Once dot gov gets it in place, it becomes dependent.  Impact fees, on the other hand, peter out as the need drops.