Bill Gives Libraries a Tax Break
A bill by State Sen. Quentin Kopp (I-San Francisco) that would offer some relief to libraries now forced to pay sales tax on periodical purchases was signed late Tuesday by Gov. Pete Wilson.
The law will exempt sales tax charges for nonprofit organizations that purchase magazines that either contain no commercial advertising or that are printed by a nonprofit group, such as Science magazine from the American Assn. for the Advancement of Science.
The University of California system libraries, together with other libraries in the state, face a tab of more than $4 million in unforeseen levies on magazines and academic journals after the sales tax was applied to periodical purchases this summer. In particular, the UC research libraries buy many specialized journals, whose cost can run as much as $10,000 a subscription.
A UC spokesman said Wednesday that libraries might be able to avoid some tax levies under the new law by checking hundreds of expensive journals page-by-page to see if they contain any advertising. But the spokesman said the task would be time-consuming and probably require auditing by the state Board of Education.
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