Quote of the day for Wednesday 11th March 2020 (Budget Day)

From the budget speech, announcing that digital publications will be free from VAT and therefore on a level playing field with paper copies:


“Today I am abolishing the reading tax. 

“From December 1 just in time for Christmas, books, newspapers, magazines or academic journals will have no VAT charge whatsoever. 

“There will be no VAT on historical fiction by Hilary Mantel, textbooks like Gray’s Anatomy or indeed works of fantasy like John McDonnell’s 'Economics for the many.'”

(Rishi Sunak, Chancellor of the Exchequer. He went on to add

"The irony is, it's sold so few copies it's his own little-read book.")


Joking aside it was always anomalous to tax or not to tax the same words according to how they are delivered and a bad idea to tax reading whatever the means of publication.

Great news that we are abolishing the reading tax.


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