I have been bombarded with media stories about this dreadful sexist tax. Even my local newspaper's headline is about the local Tory MPs who voted against in yesterday's Commons motion.
Now, my first thought was "Yes, all women need them, so they're not a luxury, so maybe they should be zero-rated".
Then I discovered that we cannot have a lower rate than the existing 5%, without negotiating with Brussels and getting the agreement of all 28 member states. Well, I think we should be out of the EU anyway, so we can set our own tax rates...but that's another subject.
Then, not being female myself (and thus having little knowledge of such things as tampons), I wondered how much women pay for these things.
It turns out that the average woman uses around 240 tampons each year, roughly priced at £1.89 for 32 Regular. This means that her annual spend would be around £15.
Her annual VAT payment on tampons would therefore be, wait for it....75p!
And to think that I thought it was serious issue.
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Topic: Tampon tax (Read 1886 times)