A country in Europe will give up applying VAT on books, in an attempt to encourage the population to read more.
Denmark will remove VAT to archive photo books
In Denmark, books are charged with 25%, the largest quota in the world, and the government believes that this policy has deepened the “reading crisis”, according to The Guardian.
The Minister of Culture, Jakob Engel-Schmidt, announced on Wednesday that the Executive will propose, through the draft budget, to eliminate the tax tax. The measure is estimated to cost 330 million crowns (about 38 million pounds) per year.
“It is something for which, as a minister of culture, we have militated, because I think we have to put everything at stake if we want to end the reading crisis, which, unfortunately, has spread in recent years.”said Engel-Schmidt for the news agency Ritzau.
“I am incredibly proud. Not every day you manage to convince your colleagues that such large amounts must be invested in the cultural consumption of the Danes.”
Other Nordic states also apply a standard VAT rate of 25%, but it does not apply to books. In Finland, VAT on books is 14%, in Sweden 6%, and in Norway it is zero.
Sweden reduced his VAT to books in 2001, which led to an increase in sales, but the analyzes showed that the additional volumes were bought by existing readers.
“It is also about bringing literature closer to people”added Engel-Schmidt. “That is why we have already allocated funds for a closer collaboration between public libraries and schools, so that more and more children are introduced into the universe of quality literature.”
According to the National Institute of Statistics, in Denmark a total of 8.3 million books in libraries and online were sold in 2023. The country has a population of just over 6 million inhabitants.
The most popular gender was that of books for the very little ones-illustrated books and activity books-and in the second place were the police novels, thrillers and suspense books.
If the measure does not lead to lower prices, Engel-Schmidt said that it will re-evaluate its opportunity.
“Of course, I will monitor how the prices evolve. If it is proven that eliminating VAT means only increasing the profits of publishers and not lowering prices, then we will have to think about whether or not it was the correct decision.”he said.
