From January 1, the UK will no longer impose a 5% value-added tax on menstrual products. According to CNN on January 2, British Chancellor of the Exchequer Sunak said, “I am proud that we have fulfilled our promise to abolish the menstrual goods tax.
Sanitary products are essentials, and it is right not to impose a value-added tax.”
For many years, activists have called for the repeal of the tax, saying that the practice of treating these supplies as non-essential or even luxury goods is “masculine supremacist” and “obsolete”.
However, the British government said that the policy could only be formally implemented after the Brexit transition period, because the European Union imposed a 5% value-added tax on these products as non-daily necessities.
According to the BBC, the European Union has been considering abolishing the value-added tax on menstrual products, and in 2018, it has issued a proposal to change the value-added tax rules to allow the member states concerned to stop collecting it, but the proposal has not been endorsed by all EU member states.
Last year, Germany classified such supplies as daily necessities and promised to lower the tax rate. At present, in addition to the United Kingdom, 16 countries and regions around the world have abolished such taxes, including Ireland, India, Australia, Canada, Tanzania and other places.
