Tampon tax to be scrapped in Budget as Boris Johnson urged to keep funding women's groups

[stumbledin]

This isn't because the Tories are pro women but because it was the EU that made the UK put VAT on sanitory products. The previous government did reduce it from 15%(?) to the minumum the EU would allow and promised to put the into the Tampon Tax Fund for women's groups. (Which as we know went to large conglomorates and not to frontline services).

So wonder if the promised money to make up for the lost VAT will be found or in fact argued that it should got into an initiative to provide free products in schools.

(Although in fact the Tories have always funded Rape Crisis Helpline to a far larger extent than Labour.)

www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/tampon-tax-scrapped-budget-boris-21647268

[Antibles]

I don't understand. Presumably if a packet of tampons is eg 30p cheaper, the 'lost' 30p stays in the purse of each woman purchasing.

Unless of course the price stays the same, in which case the manufacturer/retailer is pocketing the difference.

People should make a note of prices before and after this takes effect.

[DidoLamenting]

Tesco started covering the VAT element itself in 2017 when it reduced around a 100 sanitary products by 5%. I don't know how many other retailers did this.

Tesco would still have had to account for VAT.

[DidoLamenting]

Presumably if a packet of tampons is eg 30p cheaper, the 'lost' 30p stays in the purse of each woman purchasing

Superdrug is selling packets of 18 tampons for £2.99. Round that up to £3 for ease of calculation , the VAT element is 15p.

In the case of Tesco they "paid" the VAT so a similar product in Tesco would have been £3.00-0.15p= £2.85. Tesco would still have had to pay 5% of £2.85 in VAT.

[PreseaCombatir]

I was a bit confused at first, but I see what you mean now. They were investing the VAT from sanitary products into women’s services. Now there’s no VAT, will they keep investing?
Well have to wait and see what they do. I didn’t even know they had a tampon tax fund tbh, although I did know they charged VAT.

[Gronky]

It seems better that the choice of where exactly that money goes is soon to be in the hands of every woman who buys the products; a sort of direct democracy rather than enforced collection.

[stumbledin]

Apologies for not explaining properly. I sort of assumed it was known about.

So there was a campaign some years ago about women have to pay VAT on sanitory products. It was quite sucessful!! But the UK Government said its not our fault - its an EU regulation. But then admitted it only need to be 5% not 15%. So the vat was reduced and the Government said they would put the 5% into a fund for women's groups. Although most of it went to large corporate groups and never reached front line groups thirdforcenews.org.uk/tfn-news/tampon-tax-fund-announces-3.5m-for-womens-charities

There is also a campaign which is (I think) asking the Government to back calculate all VAT every paid on sanitory products and give this to more front line groups. I think its an odd campaign, and certainly dont think women should be asked to donate to cover the costs of the campaign!! www.wrc.org.uk/tampon-tax-campaign Sometimes pointless 2nd tier 3rd sector groups have to create issues to justify their existence.

So because of Brexit there will be no VAT on sanitory products. Which is good.

I think the issue of underfunding of women's groups shouldn't be linked to this. The WRC as part of their existing remit should be collecting info on underfunding of women's services.

[Mockerswithnoknockers]

Retail prices will almost certainly not go down. Four factors affect pricing: Costs, Value, Demand and Competition. Costs are set to rise because of Brexit. Demand would only be affected by people upmarketing to a brand from a basics product, costing more. Value doesn't change. Competition ditto.

The price elasticity of the basic product will not attract more customers.

[Gronky]

Retail prices will almost certainly not go down.

I realise it's unreasonable to expect women to change specific brands but retailers should definitely face pressure if they profiteer from this change.