By The Eldorado Mineral Partners team · Last reviewed June 2026
While you hold: royalty income
Royalty checks are ordinary taxable income, reported to you (and the IRS) each year on a Form 1099. Most royalty owners may also claim percentage depletion — a deduction, commonly 15% of royalty income, recognizing that the asset paying you is being used up. It’s easy to miss and worth confirming your preparer takes it.
States with income taxes generally tax royalties too — including, in many cases, the state where the minerals sit even if you live elsewhere, which can mean a nonresident return. Tedious, but routine for any preparer who has seen minerals before.
The taxes already on your check stub
Before your royalty is calculated, producing states take severance or production taxes off the top, and some levy local ad valorem taxes on producing minerals as well. These show up as deduction lines on your stub — meaning your check understates the gross value of your share.
Two practical notes: stub taxes are generally deductible against your royalty income, and any honest valuation of your minerals should gross them back up rather than pricing off your net check alone.
When you sell: capital gains
Selling minerals is generally a sale of real property: you’re taxed on the gain — sale price minus your basis — at capital-gains rates, which run meaningfully below ordinary-income rates for most sellers when the asset was held more than a year.
Basis is where sellers get surprised in both directions. Minerals bought for a price have that price as basis; minerals owned since a 1950s lease may have a basis near zero — making more of the sale price taxable gain.
The inherited-minerals exception
Inherited assets generally receive a stepped-up basis: fair market value as of the date of death, with the holding period treated as long-term automatically. Sell reasonably near that value and the taxable gain can be modest — a fact that changes the after-tax math for a large share of the families we talk to.
It’s also why documentation matters: a contemporaneous appraisal or credible written offer near the date of death helps your CPA establish the stepped-up number if you sell years later.
If you remember one thing from this page: inherited minerals + stepped-up basis is the single most consequential tax fact in most family mineral sales. Ask your CPA about it before deciding anything.
Questions worth bringing to your CPA
A short list that covers most situations:
- Am I claiming percentage depletion on my royalty income?
- What’s my basis — and if inherited, what was fair market value at the date of death?
- What would my federal and state capital-gains bill look like at this offer price?
- Do timing options (which tax year, splitting a sale) change my bracket?
- Do I need nonresident state returns for the minerals’ state?
Educational content, not legal, tax, or investment advice — your facts are specific, so involve your attorney and CPA before deciding anything. We’ll gladly work with them.