Some Cross-Cutting Issues 319
- An alternative regime is to issue a permit for a
strictly limited period of time, less than a year,
to a nominated institutional unit, oft en a non-
resident. Th is is a common practice in some is-
lands in the South Pacifi c, for example. In these
cases, the revenue from the licenses should be
recorded as rent (1415) because it is a resource
lease.
A4.31 A license for recreational fi shing has long
been considered, by convention, as payment of a tax
under other taxes on the use of goods and on permis-
sion to use goods or perform activities (11452). Th is
treatment is not changed by the wider considerations
for com mercial fi shing.
Water.
A4.32 A natural body of water with an economic
value can be sold in its entirety either as part of the
land that surrounds it or as a separate entity.
A4.33 As is the case for fi sh, it is unlikely that eco-
nomic ownership would be ceded under a long lease
with no preconditions on the quantity and state in
which a similar amount of water should be returned
to the owner. However, it is possible that surface
water could be leased under a long lease for recre-
ational purposes, for example. Th e treatment of such
leases should be the same as for land (see paragraphs
A4.26–A4.27).
A4.34 Regular payments for the extraction of water
from natural water bodies (as opposed to the delivery
of it) should be treated as rent (1415 or 2814). How-
ever, extraction of water as a produced commodity
(e.g., purchases from a reservoir) should be recorded
as the sale of goods and services.
Mineral and energy resources
A4.35 Mineral and energy resources diff er from
land, timber, and fi sh in that, although they also con-
stitute a natural resource, they cannot be used sustain-
ably. All extraction necessarily reduces the amount of
the resource available for the future. Th is consider-
ation necessitates a diff erent set of recom mendations
for how transactions relating to their use should be
recorded.
- When a unit, such as government, owning a
min eral or energy resource cedes all rights over
it to another unit, this constitutes the sale of
the re source classifi ed as mineral and energy re-
sources (3142). Like land, mineral resources can
be owned only by resident units; if necessary, a
notional resident unit must be established to pre-
serve this convention.- When a unit extracts a mineral or energy re-
source under an agreement where the payments
made each year are dependent on the amount
extracted, the payments (sometimes described
as royalties) are recorded as rent (1415 or 2814).
Th e depletion of the resource itself is recorded as
other changes in the volume of assets.^12
Sharing Assets
A4.36 Th ere are two ways in which assets may be
shared, and the two cases require diff erent treatments:- Th e asset may be wholly legally owned by two or
more units, each at diff erent points in time. - Alternatively, the risks of and benefi ts from the
asset may be shared by two or more units at a
single point in time.
A4.37 In macroeconomic statistics, even though
the asset may be owned by diff erent units at diff erent
times, when a balance sheet is drawn up, the whole of
the value of the asset is attributed to one unit. - For an asset subject to an operating lease, there is
no ambiguity. Th e legal owner is also the econo-
mic owner and is the unit that shows the asset on
its balance sheet. - An asset subject to a fi nancial lease is shown on
the balance sheet of the economic owner. Th is
is consistent with the views that the value of the
asset represents the stream of future benefi ts
coming from the asset and the economic owner
is the unit entitled to receive these benefi ts in re-
turn for accepting the risks associated with using
the asset in production. - For an asset subject to a resource lease, the
value is shown on the balance sheet of the legal
owner.
(^12) Th e reasons for recommending the simple recording of pay-
ments each year from the extractor to the owner as rent and
changes in the size and value of the resource as other changes in
the volume of assets of the legal owner are given in the 2008 SNA,
paragraph 17.343.