What am I missing with the tampon tax

[AngelicInnocent]

In my shopping on 28th December, I bought tampons and they were £1.87. Just going through my shopping tonight and the price remains unchanged.

I was under the impression that they were VAT free as of 1st January which should have reduced the price.

Out of curiosity, I have checked the major supermarkets online and they are all the same price.

So what am I missing or have the supermarkets just left the price unchanged to make extra profits.

Most supermarkets were paying the vat to reduce the cost down as it was the eu/Europe that classed tampons as an essential item.
I’m not sure on other shops but I clearly recall supermarkets saying they would pay it as their hands were tied

*I use tampons, but the tampon tax campaign was a total waste of time, effort and money.

Yes we paid vat on them, literallly a few pence per packet.

These few pence that made virtually no difference to 99% of women cumulatively was worth millions to the economy.

And now that has gone.

I read somewhere that the average woman would have paid £40 in her lifetime of vat, so less than £1 a year typically, I don’t know what that’s sort to the economy but probably enough to find a fair fee doctored or nurses.

So to save a few pence, millions has been lost, feels very daft to me I’m afraid*

And yet, period poverty is supposedly a thing

It's the principle of it that stinks - VAT is for 'luxury' items. It's completely audacious to say that tampons are not necessary or are a luxury and should be taxed.

Tampons and sanpro is already extremely cheap in the U.K, especially if you go for supermarket own brands. 75p for a pack of pads in Boots. Hardly worth all this fuss over a few pence in tax. I'm always shocked by the prices in other countries.

i think they used to be much more expensive, years ago, proportionately.
when i was young it would have been unthinkable to see such items in a weekly shopping trolley.
they were bought by their users discreetly from chemists'.
and they were big brands only, dr whites, kotex, lilets. tampax, etc and pricey.

oh and you had to ask for them of course, engrossed in bubble-bath until the woman assistant was free.
but they were kind too, i remember women would whisper to the asst, and she would delve under the counter and sell one or two, split from a pack, handed over in a paper bag.
there was a cameraderie of difficulty that every girl learnt to negotiate, between the private, personal realm and the public.

I know Tesco covered the tax themselves, passing the saving onto us. So if wherever you bought from did this too, the price for you would of course still be the same.

VAT is for 'luxury' items

This is a persistent myth. It's a general sales tax

@Guineapigbridge

WTF I had no idea tampons were SO CHEAP in England!!!!!

It costs me almost $8.50 to buy a pack of 32 here in NZ. So we pay twice the price here!

I can send 2kg of tampons to NZ for £8 postage. If it'd be worth it, you could get someone from the UK to send you a big box of them! I think I would tbh.

@Cabincrewclare for most women it is not the cost that is a problem it is the principle of the matter. That we were being told that sanitary products (by making us pay tax on them) that they were not essential products, when they very much are.

Also it may only have been a few pence but a few pence is a big difference to some

I wonder if contraceptive methods which stop periods are more common in countries where tampons are expensive

Most supermarkets didn't pass on the tax to customers. The key is to look at the code, easier to see at wholesale places like Costco it will have changed to vat free. Shops can charge whatever they want for a product, they are exceptionally cheap in the U.K. to start

@Guineapigbridge

Generic supermarket brands are under £1 for 24. Most of Europe is 3x that when I've bought some on holiday as is USA. My ex sil took a casefull back with her to nz

Tesco have been covering the tax for three and a half years; I think most large retailers followed suit.

With smaller retailers, it's their choice to pass the VAT reduction on to customers or not. As was the case when VAT was temporarily reduced for restaurants last year - I only came across one restaurant where the charge was passed on. Presumably small retailers also have a lot of other stuff to deal with right now, if they remain open - and has been pointed out, at 5%, it's not a vast sum.

When you say the supermarkets absorb the costs themselves, what you mean is that they tell the suppliers to reduce the costs by the amount of vat so they can pretend to have absorbed the cost but still maintaining their margin.