Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 24, 1992 TAG: 9203240436
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Short
The Texas comptroller's office in Austin was hit by an avalanche of applications from Americans requesting residential status in the Lone Star State after the "Doonesbury" comic strip cooked up the idea as a way to avoid paying income taxes in other states. Texas, you see, doesn't have an income tax.
"Git a move on! Act now and save big - just like the president," Doonesbury character Zonker Harris urged readers last month.
It was a dig, of course, at President Bush for declaring himself a Texan on the basis of spending about four days a year in a rented hotel suite in Houston. (And saving a Texas-size amount in income taxes, as a result.)
Doonesbury's line was a joke, of course. But, by dogies, 52,000 people - including 1,000 Virginians - decided to give it a try.
To those who wrote, the Texas comptroller has obligingly sent a certificate of residency "good for state income tax purposes only. (And then only if you can get away with it.)"
Nice try, gang, but Virginia's tax commissioner, Bill Forst, says no way. Folks can call themselves citizens of Texas or even citizens of "Doonesbury" if they want to, but if they spend more than half the year in Virginia, they've got to pay taxes here.
It is not true that the much-traveled Gov. Wilder will be able to skip paying state taxes under the criteria.
It is also not true that Forst has been bird-dogging Bush, clocking the times he crosses the Potomac into Northern Virginia, and is about to nail the prez for back taxes he owes the commonwealth.
by CNB