MPA to Meet With Top Administration Officials to Discuss Issues Affecting the Magazine Industry

Postal rate increase, automatic renewal ban and tax exemptions for magazines among MPA's top concerns.

By Chandra Johnson-Greene and Dylan Stableford
Tuesday, April 28, 2009

The Magazine Publishers of America’s board of directors and government affairs committee was scheduled to meet on Capitol Hill with legislators from both sides of the aisle as well as top administration officials to “discuss policy issues important to the magazine industry,” Chuck McCullagh, MPA’s senior vice president, wrote in an e-mail to members today.

According to McCullagh, while postal issues such as the USPS' rate increase for periodicals, which goes into effect on May 11, is a “central focus” for the committee, adverse legislation in other areas could have “profound implications for our overall business.”

These other issues include:

Tax exemptions for magazine subscriptions

Facing a potential $6 billion shortfall in their 2010 budget, Florida lawmakers are considering eliminating a small handful of tax exemptions, including the exemption for newspaper and magazine subscriptions.

According to the MPA’s Washington E-Newsletter, the association is “working tirelessly to remind legislators on both sides of the aisle and in both Houses of the burden this would place on all publishers, particularly Florida based publishers, the number of jobs that could be lost, and the First Amendment and literary value of magazines.”

The regulation of automatic subscription renewals

Several states, including North Carolina, Oregon, Texas, and California have introduced bills to regulate automatic renewals. The MPA is “working to oppose the North Carolina bill and monitoring another bill in Oregon (HB 2631) that would also effectively ban auto renewals.”

A bill that would mandate certain disclosures and procedures for automatic renewals is pending before the Texas House Committee on Business & Industry. The MPA believes that magazine publishers would be exempt from the bill’s requirements, since the legislation contains an exemption for agreements in which the consumer may cancel after the initial term without penalty and can receive a refund for goods not yet sent.

According to the e-newsletter, the MPA is “preparing suggestions to the sponsor to clarify the refund requirements for the exemption, as well as to remove type-size and color requirements and to add cancellation options (as written the bill only mentions cancellation by facsimile transmission).”