University Exempts Students From Mass. Meal Tax Charges

The University has not charged the Massachusetts meal tax to student termbills this year, although worksheets mailed to students last summer included the tax in projected board costs, Jerrold R. Gibson, director of Fiscal Services, said yesterday.

The Massachusetts State budget for the 1979 fiscal year exempts contract meals served at colleges from the tax. The exemption will reduce Harvard board charges by $76.70 this year.

Gibson said when the worksheets were sent out in June 1978, the status of the tax was still uncertain, so the Office of Fiscal Services included it as part of expected costs.

"By the fall, the regulations had cleared up, so we did not charge anybody for the tax," Gibson said. He added students who had paid the higher projected board bill would receive a terbill credit or, if all other expenses had been paid, a cash refund.

Frances P. Holland, chief of the Sales Excise Bureau, said yesterday until an August 1975 ruling by the Revenue Commission that specifically included colleges in the tax, some colleges payed no meal taxes. "We simply didn't always have the staff to collect from them," he said.

A state taxation committee source said yesterday the exemption probably resulted from several colleges' objections to paying the tax.