To add to the financial sting of the looming budget cuts, the University is responsible for $724,000 in back taxes stemming from a mistake in not charging sales tax on meal plans.Typically, the University has been exempt from having to pay a sales tax on meal plans. This exemption was suspended from August 1988 to June 2009 by a new law and resulted in the University being responsible for collecting sales taxes on student meal plans.     During this time, the University should have been charging sales tax, said Donna Torres, associate vice chancellor for Accounting and Financial Services.However, the suspension of this exemption was “missed” by Accounting and Financial services, Torres said.”[The exemption] was the source of confusion on our part because we didn’t know it had been overridden, neither did many other higher education institutions and neither did elementary and secondary education that have also been informed they owe the back taxes,” Torres said.This confusion resulted in the University being responsible for collecting sales taxes for year and the past three years. The University’s responsibility only goes back three years because of the statute of limitations. “If anyone is to blame, I would say it’s my section,” Torres said. “We are responsible for making sure the University is in compliance, and we missed it.” Torres said the University is hoping the exemption that kept the University from being responsible for the sales tax on meal plans will be reinstated during the legislative session that started April 25. More than 15 bills addressing the subject are being introduced during this legislative session. The reinstatement of this exemption would result in the University not being responsible for the $724,000 in back taxes and would also prompt the University to give students a refund of sales tax collected on meal plans this semester.During the spring semester, the University has charged a 4 percent sales tax on meal plans through June 30 to cover taxes for the spring semester. After July 1, a permanent 3 percent exemption will go into place so the University will then collect only a 1 percent sales tax on its meal plans, equaling about $9 more for meal plans.The 4 percent sales tax assessed on students’ meal plans this semester cost each student an additional $37, but Torres said this wasn’t an increase in revenue to the University.”That 4 percent wasn’t an increase in the meal plan,” Torres said.  “The University got no revenue from it … it’s just a tax that is assessed by law, and those funds — if we don’t get this exemption back in place — we will have to pay over to the Department of Revenue. But it wasn’t an increase in revenue to the University.”——Contact Xerxes A. Wilson at [email protected]