Court Opinion

ID: 9445562
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:32:57.851927+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:19.642070
License: Public Domain

DANAHER, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
The Act of December 24, 1942, 56 Stat. 1089, ch. 826, Title 47, Chap. 8, D.C. Code 1951, providing for certain exemptions from real property taxation in the District of Columbia, so far as is here pertinent, specified “the following and none other:
“Section 1. * * * (j) Buildings belonging to and operated by schools, colleges, or universities which are not organized or operated for private gain * * *.
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“(r) (1) Grounds belonging to and reasonably required and actually used for the carrying on of the activities and purposes of any institution or organization entitled to exemption under the provisions of this Act.”
My colleagues say, in effect, that a private board of trustees, by their own vote, may acquire and remove from the tax list grounds which are to be devoted to parking the automobiles of students and university employees. They permit the university authorities thus to enlarge the category of the grounds exempted by the Congress in 1942, on the theory that such parking facilities are required and “actually used” for carrying on the activities and purposes of the university. As a matter of policy I would be quite willing to see such grounds accorded tax exemption, but I believe such exemption should be achieved only by additional legislation.
When a comparable question was before us in District of Columbia v. George Washington University, 1955, 95 U.S.App.D.C. 214, 221 F.2d 87, 89, I entered a dissent. The District’s fears, therein referred to, have now materialized. The - dissent noted: “If it can be done for 177 privately owned cars, it can be done for 2,000.” Now the practice is heading for the 2,000 mark, and there is no indication as to where the line will be drawn. The record shows that the faculty totals approximately 2,000 and that there are approximately 10,000 students. I will now add simply to what I then wrote, that if one organization may thus achieve a tax exemption for grounds devoted to private parking facilities, all similar organizations may do likewise. I feel certain Congress never intended any such result.