Posted on 01/27/2019 11:22:12 AM PST by Kaslin
The Topeka Capital-Journal reports that a Kansas state freshman Republican representative hopes to help struggling college students burdened by the already high cost of textbooks via tax relief. Rep. Rick Hoheisel suggests that Kansas exempt all textbooks from the statewide 6.5% sales tax, thus saving students money each year they buy new books for their curriculum.
Rep. Hoheisel is a recent college graduate and remembers quite well that he would have to shell out big bucks each year simply to afford required reading. While Kansas cannot control the price of textbooks directly, the state government can control the taxes imposed on said products.
“This is something we do have control over,” Hoheisel told local media. “We can help give college students a break. Textbooks, I believe, have gone up four times the rate of inflation.”
As reported by the Capital-Journal, "House Bill 2011 introduced by Hoheisel was forwarded to the House Taxation Committee. He requested a public hearing on the bill in February in conjunction with the annual higher education lobbying day, which draws dozens of college students to the Capitol."
Rep. Hoheisel also says the bill would incentivize students to spend more money within their college communities and purchase their class' books at local stores.
“If we give sales tax breaks on this, it might inspire them to go to the bookstore and buy the textbooks because they’re saving $30 there,” the Republican said.
A recent CBS report found that "despite growing online markets for discounted books, the average cost of college textbooks has risen four times faster than the rate of inflation over the past 10 years. That has caused 65 percent of students to skip buying required texts at some point in their college career because of a lack of affordability." Likewise, The College Advisory board found that "over the course of a year, the average college student spends more than $1,200 on books and materials."
If you take a look in college bookstores, the volumes that are used are the ones the profs wish to use. They will select the books written to their instruction by the authors they want. There is no competition in book sales. And the profs are influenced by the publishers and have contact with them for the use of the texts. There are way too many hurdles to getting cheap books. And even the used ones don’t stay long because even in the profs uses the same volume the next semester or quarter that he/she demands, it won’t be cheap and the government can’t tell the publishers what to charge. So all they are doing is spending taxpayer money when the costs go up again, and again, as they continually change textbooks.
rwood
I’ve got a better idea for this Kansas legislator. Submit a bill to reduce our personal property tax on vehicles so that it is at least in the ballpark amount of ANY other state.
...a Kansas state freshman Republican representative hopes to help struggling college students burdened by the already high cost of textbooks via tax relief. Rep. Rick Hoheisel suggests that Kansas exempt all textbooks from the statewide 6.5% sales tax, thus saving students money each year they buy new books for their curriculum... Rep. Hoheisel is a recent college graduate... [and yet remains dumb enough to say] “This is something we do have control over,” Hoheisel told local media... Rep. Hoheisel also says the bill would incentivize students to spend more money within their college communities and purchase their class' books at local stores.
Check out abebooks.com for textbooks printed in India. The paper is think, but the info is there.
I had a fine collection of ADC Book Maps for every county I went to and some of the little plastic insets.
The would come out and I guess once they reached there limit on what they would map, they would come out with a revised edition and almost worked it down to a by yearly basis...
Long about the same time frame the GPS dropped under one hundred bucks so I pounced on them and basically tossed my 2000 or so bucks worth of book maps AND haven’t had to buy another one since.
‘They’ will keep pushing us and along comes something to make them obsolete....I think the GPS are trying to get you to upgrade every 6 months or so but a lot of the ‘newer’ ones have a lifetime renewal....
EXACTLY!!!!!!
Nah.
Why not just print your own?
Or better yet, why PRINT anything??
Sorry, but my phone maps (and/or apps) have taken over the GPS standalone market.
(Unless you are WAY out in the woods!)
So true.
The proof will be if this GooPer applies the same tax relief to used textbooks. And I don't mean just commercial resellers but Sam Student trying to resell his $325 specialty engineering textbook on Amazon.
If not, you know who has been stuffing money in GooPer's hole...
Anything to give away more of our money for a great idea.
I’d love to go on a world cruise. I have to tell myself no. I don’t have the money.
Then they take that money and give it away to others.
F that!
Or the REAL criminals here, the professors who write the books. Can't speak for today, but when I went to college in the 1970s, at least half of the "required" books for classes beyond fundamentals were authored or co-authored by the professors who were "teaching" the course.
A great second source of income for them, since, for a price, they lent their name to the course while having grad students do the teaching, and wrote the book for royalties from the publishers. Yeah, not all of the professors were goniffs, but enough were to make it memorable some 40 years later!
Why can't we put together a Free Republic cruise?
The little secret that never seems to be is that all those expensive books for “required reading” are no such thing. Nearly every professor tests only on what is specifically covered in class. A student doesn’t really need those overrated books in most instances. Mathematics could be an exception, but the math books are almost unreadable though students must work math problems from those books.
Agree on the phone maps BUT I had recently purchased one of them thar fancy dancy combine that fits where my radio was, with built in screen and all.
Only thing I don’t like about it is I didn’t have the foresight to get the one with a ‘talk to’ to get my newest destination plugged in...
Right now I honestly don’t. LOL
Later this year maybe.
what kind?
Jensen VX7012
Wasn’t sure I would ‘like’ it so went for the mid priced one.
Do like, though AM/FM could be better (IMNSHO) but blue tooth/XM(separate but easy set up), GPS(manual I want voice activated) and a few other ‘features’.
Will probably upgrade ‘tomorrow’(tomorrow never comes) but ‘dumb ol me’ will probably go to another brand which will more than likely require a rewire of my truck....ha ha....
All in all, good but I am ‘kind of anal’ so easy to find a ‘fault’ with most everything....
YES, I am currently single..my cats don’t seem to mind my idiosyncracies..<: <: <:
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.