The Iowa State University Book Store is looking into dropping the 6 percent sales tax from sales of its textbooks to make the store more competitive with Internet textbook sellers.

Paul Tanaka, director of University Legal Services, said a large part of the decision to consider discarding the sales tax was because of the competition of sales by tax-free Internet sellers.

Warren Madden, vice president for Business and Finance, said the sale-tax issue has been raised by ISU students a little more actively this year.

“With the development of the online book providers like Varsitybooks.com, we are seeing a movement of textbook sales [to the Internet providers],” he said. “If the high volume items move off of campus, at some point, that will have an impact on our sales.”

Madden said the university would like to continue delivering the same services as efficiently as the online bookstores.

“We’ve decided it is time to at least start to look at [dropping the sales tax],” he said.

However, Graham Gillette, spokesman for Campus Book Store, 2300 Lincoln Way, said store officials feel book sales by Internet companies are not yet a large threat.

“I don’t think it’s a significant market share to date … not that it wouldn’t be down the road,” he said. “I think that there are a lot of things to look at here, and I think the majority of students still continue to buy their books from a campus bookstore.”

Jacqueline Slaughter, book division manager at UBS, said the bookstore has not seriously considered dropping the tax in the past because of unfair competition with nearby CBS.

“There is legislation on the books that allows us to [drop the sales tax]. The only reason we have not is for fair trade practices,” she said. “If they’ll drop it for private stores, that would be great.”

Gillette questioned the motives behind the university’s inquiries into dropping the sales tax.

“If the university’s motivation is to make it easier for students to budget their income, isn’t it better to have competition?” he said.

Gillette said it was his understanding that ISU has a bookstore to ensure that students have access to supplies and books. However, he questioned whether it is the state’s place to protect the business a university runs.

“I don’t think it’s right for the state to prop up a university-run business,” he said.

Madden said from the university’s perspective, having more than one store is not negative.

“We hope to continue to have that,” he said.

Tanaka said there has been some interest across the state in re-opening the law for sales tax on textbooks and making sure it is fair to independent retailers.

He said the issue could have several implications in keeping things fair.

“The fundamental issue that we have is having an even playing field,” Tanaka said. “If there’s going to be an exception for books, [it] should apply to textbooks no matter what store you buy at.”

Gillette agreed that in order to keep the competitive market fair and allow the students to get the best possible price, tax removal should be granted to private retailers as well.

“The goal should be that students do get the lowest price on books,” he said. “If they are doing it to make sure the students [get the cheapest price possible], that’s fine. But if they are doing this in a way to get another advantage in the local market, that’s not fair.”

Gillette said CBS officials will continue to watch and see what happens before they decide what action to take.

“If there is a certain benefit that the university is able to offer,” he said, “we’re going to ask for the same opportunity. At that end, it’s better for students.”

Lynette Seymour, general manager of UBS, was not available for comment.