The UK government is discouraging the practice of reading and damaging the UK's publishing industry by continuing to charge VAT on ebooks. An increasing number of people are reading books in digital format, but with VAT such a significant extra cost, the books are often little or no cheaper than their print equivalents.
The admirable sentiment that books are a necessity, not a luxury, is being quietly abandoned in favour of extra tax revenue. The EU has removed barriers to equalising VAT on ebooks but the UK government doesn't seem to be making any moves towards adopting this – indeed, with VAT having just gone up ('permanently' according to the government) the situation has got worse. We should be proud of not taxing people to read – let's keep it that way.
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