Assemblyman Bill Leonard (R) of Riverside has written a new bill which would eliminate the California sales tax from college textbooks. Assembly Bill 1246, introduced for the third time on Feb. 23, may help college students statewide in reduction of the cost of school materials.

Currently, Sacramento has a sales tax of 7.25 percent. Under the bill, this tax would be cut, only allowing the local tax of 2.25 percent to be paid.

“With this [bill], we won’t end up hurting the local government revenue source. However, taxes vary from area to area. It’s a small saving, but it’s helpful,” said Alex Arteaga, director of Governmental Relations for the California State Student Association. “The bill has been going around for quite some time now.”

CSSA is the principle sponsor of the bill this year, although the bill for tax-free textbooks started in the mid 1990s by assembly member Brooks Firestone.

“This is the second time we have introduced it. It was put into the budget for the 2000-2001 year, however, it was vetoed during budget deliberations,” Arteaga said.

CSSA was involved with this bill in the past, but they were not the principle sponsors. “The bill did not pass before because Denise Ducheny (D, of Los Angeles) dropped it. She didn’t really care about it. She wasn’t running for office again to push it and simply did not care,” Arteaga said.

CSSA rejoined the fight to pass the bill last year, Arteaga said.

“I hope the bill does get passed, for it would help students greatly with the cost of their school supplies. It seems like a reasonable bill,” said Associated Students Inc. President Jason Bryant.

Assistant CSSA Representative Kevin Greene also believes that this bill should be passed. “It’s a small price to pay in terms of state income lost to the tax cut, but it will be very important and beneficial to students across the state,” Greene said.

If the bill is passed, it will lead to a $30 million loss for the state of California, Arteaga said.”$30 million is not a big deal for California, because the surplus for the end of this fiscal year was a little over $8 billion. If this bill should pass, it would greatly help our students. It is something they need. It is a small saving for them, but for college students it is a lot,” Arteaga said.

If the bill does pass, it will directly apply to all institutions of higher education, public and private, in California.

An excerpt from the Assembly Bill reads as follows. “This bill would establish an additional exemption from sales and use taxes with respect to the sale in the state of, or the storage, use, or other consumption in this state of, college textbooks, as defined?..This bill would specify that this exemption does not apply to local sales and use taxes or transactions and use taxes?..This bill would take effect immediately as a tax levy, but its operative date would depend on its effective date?”