We’d like to see a Cabela’s retail store in Maine, but the firm’s demand – that Maine exempt it from paying sales tax on catalog sales that originate from within the state – is high-handed and unacceptable.

Cabela’s is the Nebraska outdoor retailer known for its telephone-book sized catalogs selling everything from boat batteries to beef jerky seasoning. It is now dotting the country with its retail stores, some of which are likened to hunting and fishing wonderlands that mix wildlife displays with learning activities.

The company would now like to build a store near Exit 42 of the Maine Turnpike in Scarborough, right in the heart of L.L. Bean country.

We’re in favor of competition, and we wouldn’t be surprised if the thought of a Cabela’s in Maine was part of the reason Bean enlarged its hunting and fishing offerings and split them off from the main store in Freeport.

But Cabela’s now wants to be exempted from paying sales tax on its catalog orders from Maine.

This is a sore spot with us. As long as bricks-and-mortar stores pay sales taxes, it is unfair that Internet and telephone retailers do not.

Residents of Maine are required to record their out-of-state catalog purchases and pay the equivalent tax to the state. Nobody really knows how often that happens, but we’re betting the proportion of scofflaws is high.

But, companies with a physical presence in the state are required to collect and pay sales taxes on all of their sales.

We don’t see how the state of Maine could possibly exempt Cabela’s from paying the sales tax without exempting L.L. Bean.

And if we exempt those two, wouldn’t we have to exempt Sears, Wal-Mart and a thousand other Maine retailers from paying sales tax on their phone and Internet sales here?

There are already hundreds of exemptions to Maine’s beleaguered sales tax. When we exempt more goods and services, we whittle away at one of the legs holding up the state’s revenue collection system.

Cabela’s, according to an Associated Press story, will withdraw its plans for Scarborough if it doesn’t get its way. “It is a deal-breaker for Cabela’s,” said Gene Beaudoin of New England Expedition LLC, which represents Cabela’s.

Well, certain things should also be “deal-breakers” for the state of Maine, and a request for an unfairly favorable tax treatment from an out-of-state retailer should be one of them.