Opinion
No. 31237
Decided June 23, 1948.
Motor vehicles — Annual license tax — Section 6291, General Code — School bus exempt — Section 6295-1, General Code — Sunday school or Bible school bus not exempt.
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Franklin county.
The relator, appellant herein, filed in the Court of Appeals a petition praying for a writ of mandamus directing the respondent, Registrar of Motor Vehicles, appellee herein, to issue to it appropriate license plates, without payment of the annual motor vehicle license tax.
The petition alleges, in part, that relator is a religious organization which maintains a house of worship and conducts therein church services, a Sunday school regularly once each week, school functions on numerous occasions during the week and a vacation Bible school each week during the summer months for children under 14 years of age; that due to inadequate transportation facilities a motor bus was purchased and is operated sorely to transport school children to and from Sunday school, school functions and the vacation Bible school; and that pursuant to Section 6295-1, General Code, relator made a request of the respondent to issue license plates, without payment of the annual license tax, which request was refused by respondent.
The Court of Appeals sustained a general demurrer of the respondent and dismissed the petition of the relator.
Appeal was perfected to this court.
Mr. Clarence J. Stewart, for appellant.
Mr. Hugh S. Jenkins, attorney general, and Mr. Joseph S. Gill, for appellee.
The single question is whether the motor vehicle used for the purposes alleged is a "school bus" entitled to registration without payment of the annual license tax.
Section 6291, General Code, levies an annual license tax upon the operation of motor vehicles on the public roads and highways of this state.
Section 6295-1, General Code, providing for an exemption, reads in part:
"No school bus as hereinafter defined shall be required to pay the annual license tax provided for in Section 6291 of the General Code. The term 'school bus' as used herein shall be construed to mean any vehicle, however owned, used exclusively to transport school children, either to and/or from school, or to and/or from any school function, having a seating capacity of more than five persons exclusive of the driver."
A statutory provision which relieves from taxation is to be strictly construed, and property which is claimed to be exempt from the payment of taxes must come squarely within the exemption provisions of the law. Paragraph one of the syllabus of Crown Hill Cemetery Assn. v. Evatt, Tax Commr., 143 Ohio St. 399, 55 N.E.2d 660.
Words of a statute will be construed in their ordinary acceptation and significance and with the meaning commonly attributed to them. 37 Ohio Jurisprudence, 542, Section 288; paragraph three of the syllabus, Baker v. Powhatan Mining Co., 146 Ohio St. 600, 67 N.E.2d 714.
In the ordinary acceptation, the term, "school," standing alone, is a place where general education is imparted to young people. The meaning commonly attributed to the term is an institution conducting a course of general education and mental training similar to that offered to children by a public educational system. The terms, "Sunday school," and, "Bible school," are ordinarily applied to a place for religious instruction, operated in conjunction with a church.
The words, "school," and, "Sunday school" or "Bible school," are not synonymous, but are distinguishable in common understanding.
The relator was not entitled to a writ of mandamus from the Court of Appeals and its judgment is affirmed.
Judgment affirmed.
WEYGANDT, C.J., TURNER, MATTHIAS, HART, ZIMMERMAN, SOHNGEN and STEWART, JJ., concur.