Taxing Unpatented Mining Claims, Fremont County sending out Real Property Notice of Valuations Options

[ASTROBLEME]

Just when I thought I had everything pretty much figured out with mining claim laws, Fremont County sends me a Real Property Notice of Valuation for my unpatented placer mining claims. After running the numbers and reading the fine print, county government was making a demand for several hundred dollars on each claim. No other county has demanded taxes on unpatented claims I hold on BLM lands. After doing a little research, I found this reference to taxing Colorado mining claims;

TITLE 39

I went to the Assessor's Office and complained about the high values and asked how they were determined along with an explanation of why adjacent claims were not being taxed. Well, now they are going to re-asses my claims and send me an updated valuation in a couple of weeks. Both the local BLM Field Office and the Mining Law Administration at the Colorado State BLM Office are looking into this matter as well, since they have never heard of it happening before.

Anyone else ever encounter this?

ASTROBLEME

[CP]

This is a real problem as I see it. A "tax" would have to be "assessed" on a specific value to base the tax percentage from as with any other tax but this attempts to allow the county to arbitrarily set values based on reported production figures while there is no "property value" associated to tax.....but yet it states several times "mines will be taxed like any other real property"?!
If the county wanted to assess tax on a mining claim it would need to be based on the property (mineral) value which would require an actual mineral survey for accurate/consistent assessment purposes. Trouble is the county can not require a mineral survey as they would have to foot the bill if its required by their office.
As I understand it, this is why location claims are not taxable.......the mineral value is as of yet undetermined so there is nothing to base any taxation on per value of the mineral property/deposit.

If the county wanted to charge this "fee" then it should be more appropriately designated as such instead of calling it a tax IMHO. Not that they have any reason at all to charge the fee.......it's rediculous!!

I know there are other places (California) where claim owners are illegally "taxed" on location mining claims without any real assessed value of the mineral property within the claim.

I see several more areas of concern within title 39 context, especially regarding disclosing books to county officials?! Are they now going to file personal income taxes for the miner too!? Why in the hell would the county need access to the miners books and where did that come from......no other business has to offer their proprietary books/records up for countys just because the county wants to see how much they made??!!
Seems like they're trying to use production (income) to determine a property value? HMMMMMMM I don't think that's how it's done.

Thanks for posting this Astrobleme, please keep us all posted on what unfolds and definately let us all know if we can help as citizens to speak out somewhere along the line as a collective voice if needed to specifically address this county.
Swizz....right on! We will all stand for our rights as the collective!