I am a joint royalty recipient in a well that is located in LaSalle County. It is on property where my grandfather retained the mineral rights and sold the land about 50 years ago. The well started producing and my siblings and cousins and I have been receiving royalties for about a year. The oil company withholds an amount out of each payment and I understand that is to pay state severance taxes and each of the royalty recipients is responsible for county taxes. We have received tax bills from Cotulla ISD and LaSalle County Appraisal district and expected those. However we have also received a bill from Frio County Appraisal district that is about 4 times the amount that LaSalle wants. I am nowhere in the area -- I live about 1500 miles away so I can't just hop over to the office and ask for an explanation.
Is this typical or has Frio County made a mistake of some sort? How would I go about getting an answer from Frio County? If they have a valid reason for collecting the taxes, I'm fine with it. It just seems odd.
Could be ISD boundary overlap into two different Counties. I would contact the appraisal district that the property is located. They should be able to tell you, which taxing units, the property is located in. An example is the Industrial ISD is primarily located in Jackson County, but their boundary lines go into Victoria County. Those folk have to pay taxes and vote on school matters in Jackson County. I think the Jackson County Tax Assessor/Collector contracts with ISD to collect their taxes, but don't have any idea what goes on in LaSalle and Frio Counties. Good Luck and most likely get ready to pay them all!
You will owe taxes to each county in which any part of your property interest lies. Independent school districts often transverse county lines so you may well get a bill for taxes owing to an ISD that may lie almost totally in another county (but covers your property to the extent any part crosses a county line). Getting a copy of the legal description reflecting the surface to which your mineral interest attaches and overlaying it on a county map is the only way to know for sure if a mistake has been made. There's no harm in starting with calls to the appraisal districts for each county to see if they will provide information as to why they believe your interest to be subject to their jurisdiction. Your interest may also be entirely in one county, but be part of a pool that crosses county lines. If that's the issue, asking each tax assessor/collector to provide their basis for valuation will be the next step to make the case that the pool should be taxed based solely on the % of the surface portion of the pool that is within each county.