
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, March 17, 1991                   TAG: 9103190397
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: B-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

A CRUSADE?/ TAX REVOLT AT W&L

SOME WASHINGTON and Lee University undergraduates trying to avoid personal property taxes are tarnishing the image of their school and fellow students.

Determined to avoid taxes on their fancy cars, they originally toyed with the idea of boycotting Lexington businesses. Now student leaders are talking about plans for students to park cars outside city limits 15 weekends a year to legally avoid the tax.

If all students with cars paid taxes, $50,000 to $100,000 would be generated in personal property tax revenues, say Lexington officials. But more important than the money are a principle and the law.

The principle is that residents, including students, who benefit from city services should help pay for those services. The law says that the tax on cars will be paid in the jurisdiction in which the cars are "principally parked." An attorney general's opinion says full-time college students must pay the tax where they reside while attending school.

We can't imagine most students walking appreciable distances to where their cars are parked outside city limits. We're not enamored of the personal property tax itself; it's something of a nuisance. Still, we wonder: Is tax evasion the best crusade these students can come up with?

by CNB