Denmark proposes to abolish tax on books

[thewayne]

In an effort to boost reading, Denmark is proposing to abolished their 25% VAT on books, the highest tax rate on books in the world. This would hit their government revenue stream for about 330 million kroner ($51 million) a year. The culture minister hopes that this will reduce the cost of books and encourage more people to read.

Denmark's VAT rate on books is a bit out of line. From the article: "Other Nordic countries also charge a standard rate of 25% VAT, but it does not apply to books. VAT on books in Finland is 14%, in Sweden 6% and in Norway zero.

Sweden reduced its VAT on books in 2001, resulting in a rise in book sales, but analysis found they were bought by existing readers.

“It is also about getting literature out there,” said Engel-Schmidt. “That is why we have already allocated money for strengthened cooperation between the country’s public libraries and schools, so that more children can be introduced to good literature.”

A total of 8.3m books were sold in shops and online in Denmark in 2023, according to the national statistics office. The country’s population is just over 6 million.

I don't know that people are reading as much as they used to. I can pull up the numbers of how many books my library has lent over time, but if I don't have the corresponding number of how many students and teachers we've had for the same years, that raw number sadly doesn't mean much.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/20/denmark-to-abolish-vat-on-books-in-effort-to-get-more-people-reading

https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/08/22/0031247/denmark-to-abolish-vat-on-books-to-get-more-people-reading

Comments

[dewline]

Excellent news.

Salut to Denmark!

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> In an effort to boost reading, Denmark is proposing to abolished their 25% VAT on books, the highest tax rate on books in the world. <<

Hell, with a tax that high, even I would think twice about buying new books. O_O

>>I don't know that people are reading as much as they used to.<<

I suspect they're actually reading more text, but doing it online -- websites, fanfic, social media posts, etc. -- rather than paper books. It doesn't help that paper books are considerably more expensive than they used to be, it's getting harder to find mass-market paperbacks instead of the more costly trade paperbacks, magazines are ridiculously overpriced and so are ebooks.

[blue_green_dream]

That's an incredibly high tax! Hopefully the scheme works and gets more people reading. I've recently started Bookcrossing as a means of curbing my doomscrolling habit, and it's made me realize the many, many benefits that come from reading beyond just education. It'll be interesting to see how this goes.

[thewayne]

Check with your local library to see if they lend ebooks.  Also, subscribe to email lists from Storybundle.com and HumbleBundle.com: they occasionally offer some incredible ebook bundles!  There's also EarlyBirdBooks.com and BookBub.com, both offer very inexpensive books and occasionally free ones.

[blue_green_dream]

Thanks! I usually buy used books over at ThriftBooks for Bookcrossing, but I'll have to check out some of the offerings on these sites. Looks like I may be experimenting with that Kindle jailbreaking guide sooner rather than later!

[disneydream06]

WOW, the highest tax on books in the world?
Gotta wonder why they thought that was a good thing in the first place. :o :o :o
Hugs, Jon

[thewayne]

Well, gotta get taxes from the people if you want to provide free health care and education.

[disneydream06]

It seems so wrong to pick on books. :o

[garote]

I used to have a Stephen King collection, mostly in paperback, and I was bizarrely proud of it, even though almost all of them were purchased used and beat up by the time I got them. I would keep them lined up on my shelf and rearrange them by different criteria, but I very rarely re-read them.

I sold them all at a used bookstore when I left for college just because hauling them around seemed pointless. Afte that point I would buy only a handful of books a year and give them away immediately after finishing them, and of course during the holidays there was always a lively exchange with my cousins. (E.g. one year I gave a cousin a hardcover edition of On The Origin Of Species, and got a back an anthology of Happy Noodle Boy.)

Since about the age of 35 I shifted mostly to audiobooks for my long-form stuff, which I’d listen to in the car or on my bike.

And of course, the entire time I’ve been a voracious reader. The amount of short-form stuff I read is enormous. And with audiobooks included, I‘ve probably spent about four hours reading EVERY day for the last 25 years.

But here’s the thing. The idea of pulping a tree into a brick of inked pages to convey a work to me for reading once, maybe twice, … seems absurdly wasteful to me now. I mean, what’s the relative resource cost, renewable versus non-renewable, plus mining and refining, to generate one digital screen, which will last ten years or more with sensible care, versus the hundred or so books worth of print I devour every year, added up over that same range?

[thewayne]

There's very few audiobooks that I can listen to, they tend to put me straight to sleep. My wife and lots of my friends absolutely love them! For driving, I listen to podcasts or music.

I went through my storage locker and did a severe weed of my book collection. Probably 80%+ of them went to a thrift store or the local Friends of the Library. Some went to the trash, depending on the condition of the book or my opinion of the author or book: there were some books that I just flat-out did not want to spread around, and had I known about some opinions or things that certain authors wrote about, I wouldn't have bought the book in the first place.

Now 99% of the books that I buy are ebooks. The weed took place in the anticipation that we will be moving again some day and that move may be international, and I just didn't want to shlep all those books with me! The volume was daunting, as was the price: I pay an average of $2-3 for an ebook most of the time.

[kaishin108]

That country sounds great. I wish I could afford to move there. Are you two still thinking Spain?

[thewayne]

Right now, no plans are being made.  I've renewed my passport, she has not and hers is expired.  We're looking at a trip to Europe next year.

[kaishin108]

I just saw that this morning. A river cruise sounds great! We want to do that too.

[silveradept]

I think people are reading as much as they have been before, but in the same way that in the States, you used to be able to believe everyone was watching the same programs (when there were four major networks), you now know that nobody is watching the same thing at the same time, people have diffused their choice of books and their choice of formats to whatever works best for them. I wonder if the VAT is/was also charged on e-books, for example, and if not, there may be quite a significant amount of reading done on electronic devices.

I would like to believe that cheap books are a thing that everyone knows and wants, but sometimes that's not the priority over everything else.