Students lobby for tax-free textbooks

Students may soon be purchasing textbooks tax-free if House Bill 1397 passes. The bill, currently in the second reading in the Georgia House of Representatives, would remove state sales tax from textbook sales in the state. The bill is a product of the efforts of the Student Lobby Board (SLB), Bill Hembree, the Higher Education Committee chair from Villa Rica and Representative Brooks Coleman from Duluth.

The SLB is a committee, established within the SGA for coordinating efforts with local, State and Federal Governmental bodies in matters relating to student issues and concerns.

The bill proposes the tax-free textbooks initiative which, according to Patrick Cook, SLB chair and third-year Mechanical Engineering major, would help lift the eight- percent sales tax on books written for K-12 and higher education. The bill would help the average student, who pays about $770 to $870 for textbooks, to save approximately $60 or $70 a year.

“It’s an initiative to cut state sales tax...off textbooks in...Georgia,” Cook said. “We’ve been in touch with representatives and senators in the legislature along with schools across Georgia to make this a collaborative effort we can all be proud of.”

“This bill is supposed to exempt sales tax for all [textbooks] for the student population in Georgia,” said Jonghwa Ahn, a first-year Computer Science major, who is on the Student Lobby Board.

“Tech students can get really excited about this because it mitigates their required fiscal demands by having to buy textbooks, and it also gives them an extra pad to their wallets,” Cook said.

Cook said that the idea had been in the works since the fall Student Advisory Council (SAC) conference. As the representative from Tech, Cook also said that a lot of headway had been made in the positive direction for this initiative.

“We’re just ecstatic that a bill was made through our lobbying efforts,” Cook said. “We have been very fortunate to help push a bill onto the docket in the House.”

While the bill would be considered in the next legislative session, Cook emphasized the importance of spreading the word about the bill and more generally the initiative.

“We want to inform people about it this year so that next year people know about it, so it doesn’t lose steam. Moreover, we want to publicize this opportunity to students and parents who pay for the textbooks,” Cook said.

The passage of the bill, however, is not guaranteed. “This isn’t guaranteed passage; the Lobby Board is going to work very hard along with GT political interest groups as well as those from other campuses to influence the passage of this bill,” Cook said. “Next year we hope to be prepared when legislative session starts to work with representatives and senators in general assembly to pass this bill.”

The impact of this initiative on the state and local budgets, as well as the bookstores, has been debated.

“The state government, once it as a whole is ready, may cut $19.5 million from state revenue,” Cook said. “The initiative should be a slow process because of the chaos it would cause these legislators if they had to reenact sales tax on textbooks.”

According to Cook, bookstores would actually benefit.

“Online bookstores such as Amazon.com don’t have to charge sales tax since they’re out of state jurisdiction. This bill will allow college bookstores to have equal competitive advantage with online bookstores,” Cook said.

The success of the bill is dependent on how rewarding it would be to students. “The state might lose money, but the reward is priceless in terms of education. The Board of Regents’ motto is to create a more educated Georgia,” said Charlie Warendh, a SLB member and Industrial Engineering major who also helped put together a letter that was sent to Congress members on Monday. “This will help create a more educated Georgia.”

“We’re trying to view this bill in a macroeconomic perspective,” Ahn said. “With an estimate of a student spending about $800 per semester, this will save a lot of money in total number since we have about 813,000 students in Georgia buying textbooks including K-12.”

Ahn added that the SLB was endeavoring to involve as many people as possible. “We’re encouraging our student body and other schools to send mails and calling their own representatives to know about this bill and how necessary it is to our state,” he said.

Cook also acknowledged the role of Tom Daniel, the vice chancellor of the Board of Regents. “We are grateful to Tom Daniel, who we have used as an advisor.”

Many students said they supported the initiative. “Anything that decreases price of textbooks is plenty fine with me,” said Jeff Halter, a first-year Psychology major. “An extra sixty bucks a semester, you could go to other venues. I’d totally be all for it. Why not make other school supplies tax-free?”

Albert d’Heurle, a third-year International Affairs majors, said his views ran along the same lines. “I feel like anything to help lower the already outrageously inflated textbook price seems like a good idea,” d’Heurle said. “Also, it doesn’t really bother me that the state government might lose up to 19 million dollars and be forced to tax another group of people such as large corporations.”

Some students said that they were more skeptical. “I’d be in favor, but I don’t see it happening,” said Brian O’Connor, a second-year Mechanical Engineering major. “The government will never take off taxes except for tax-free holidays. Taxes are taxes.”

O’Connor said he felt that the publishers were ultimately responsible for reducing their prices and not the government, something that —according to Cook— was not feasible. “If ‘tax-free textbooks’ is successful in passing the legislature, the price of textbooks will have effectively been reduced as much as possible without having to cap prices given by private publishers. That would never work,” Cook said.

While this is a novel notion in Georgia, such a concept is not unfamiliar to students in other states around the country. “We’ve done a good amount of research,” Cook said. “At least four states: New York, Missouri, West Virginia and Virginia already have made textbooks exempt from state-level taxes.”