'Reading crisis' prompts Denmark to end 25% tax on books • Hacker News Board

Re: 'Reading crisis' prompts Denmark to end 25% tax on books

#21

Post by kqr » Thu, Aug 21, 2025, 6:32 AM UTC

pmontra wrote: post #12

tossandthrow wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why the general incompetency added on? Ad the other commenter wrote: The 25% is assumed - this has nothing to do with competence but to what level an assumption is true. Everybody can point fingers at 25 year old code and call the developers incompetent because surrounding requirements have changed.

Considering that's 25 year old code I'd expect at least a #define VAT 0.25 and not hardcoded values all around the source code. However I don't expect a table (db table, array, etc) of product categories with their own VAT code or a user defined exception list. That extra code would inevitably add bugs that are not worth the trouble. Adding an exception for books probably requires an update of the apps.

Such a constant would be no better -- they don't want to change the VAT rate across all product types.

The code missing is that for per-product type variation in VAT rate, which sounds complicated enough that Iawould expect a good engineer to shrug and say YAGNI until it's actually necessary.

Re: 'Reading crisis' prompts Denmark to end 25% tax on books

#22

Post by hvb2 » Thu, Aug 21, 2025, 6:32 AM UTC

mlinhares wrote: post #5

Svip wrote: post #2

The way this article is worded makes it sound like Denmark has a 'book tax'. Denmark has a VAT on goods (and services), which is 25%. But Denmark doesn't have split VAT values, so it's either 25% or nothing; no in-between. So they are just proposing removing the VAT from books. (Some goods and services are already exempt from VAT.) And if you wonder why Denmark doesn't simply lower their VAT or introduce a split VAT…

Insane that technical debt and general incompetency in software can produce such unexpected side effects.

That general incompetency you're referring to there can also be worded as

For years they didn't build unneeded complexity. And it sounds like for many more years to come. So they're just efficient. Any developer will have had to make things configurable afterwards, that's fine, just evolution of code.

Hard coding also means that it's less likely to break. No customer (in Denmark) can influence this, so why make it configurable?

Over time this does become a problem when source code is lost/companies go under.

Re: 'Reading crisis' prompts Denmark to end 25% tax on books

#23

Post by bruce511 » Thu, Aug 21, 2025, 6:33 AM UTC

uoaei wrote: post #16

Svip wrote: post #2

The way this article is worded makes it sound like Denmark has a 'book tax'. Denmark has a VAT on goods (and services), which is 25%. But Denmark doesn't have split VAT values, so it's either 25% or nothing; no in-between. So they are just proposing removing the VAT from books. (Some goods and services are already exempt from VAT.) And if you wonder why Denmark doesn't simply lower their VAT or introduce a split VAT…

What is the primary reason for hard-coding these kinds of things? Gotta imagine CScientists would have debated this during the design phase. I have some hypotheses, are any of these right? * correctness/verifiability analyses * security? in compiled tools (prevent malicious re-configuration) * an assumption of the inertia of law * general incompetence/naivete ???

There's absolutely no reason to hard-code the value. That's just bad programming.

However you can't expect programmers to predict all possible future compatibility.

In my country VAT has a current rate. That rate can, and has, changed. But we have one rate. Some goods are exempt, but products have a VAT yes/no field.

Perhaps in the future the system will change. One possible change is that VAT attracts different % for different products. I'm not predicting that, or coding for it now. VAT rules could change to anything- I can't code against that.

Re: 'Reading crisis' prompts Denmark to end 25% tax on books

#24

Post by geysersam » Thu, Aug 21, 2025, 6:33 AM UTC

mlinhares wrote: post #5

Svip wrote: post #2

The way this article is worded makes it sound like Denmark has a 'book tax'. Denmark has a VAT on goods (and services), which is 25%. But Denmark doesn't have split VAT values, so it's either 25% or nothing; no in-between. So they are just proposing removing the VAT from books. (Some goods and services are already exempt from VAT.) And if you wonder why Denmark doesn't simply lower their VAT or introduce a split VAT…

Insane that technical debt and general incompetency in software can produce such unexpected side effects.

So if the House introduced a 'fixed' VAT tomorrow, say $1, not proportional to the price of the product, would that not break most software used to compute VATs?

We have to make assumptions. Good software doesn't account for every future possiblity, but it is easy to change when the requirements change.

Re: 'Reading crisis' prompts Denmark to end 25% tax on books

#25

Post by Svip » Thu, Aug 21, 2025, 6:34 AM UTC

uoaei wrote: post #16

Svip wrote: post #2

The way this article is worded makes it sound like Denmark has a 'book tax'. Denmark has a VAT on goods (and services), which is 25%. But Denmark doesn't have split VAT values, so it's either 25% or nothing; no in-between. So they are just proposing removing the VAT from books. (Some goods and services are already exempt from VAT.) And if you wonder why Denmark doesn't simply lower their VAT or introduce a split VAT…

What is the primary reason for hard-coding these kinds of things? Gotta imagine CScientists would have debated this during the design phase. I have some hypotheses, are any of these right? * correctness/verifiability analyses * security? in compiled tools (prevent malicious re-configuration) * an assumption of the inertia of law * general incompetence/naivete ???

The real problem is actually less the exact rate of 25%, but rather that most of the systems only assume one rate. Denmark was the first country to introduce a general VAT in 1967, and whilst the rate has changed (last in 1992 to 25%), the number of rates have not. So lowering the general VAT rate would likely be possible in a 1-3 year time frame (depending on unknown factors), but lowering the general VAT rate would be a significant loss on state finances (thus not interesting to politicians) (and as someone else pointed out, it mostly favours high spenders, which is also politically dicey).

However, introducing a split rate would definitely require a time frame of at least 4 years, and no politician are willing to wait that long for a politician win.

Re: 'Reading crisis' prompts Denmark to end 25% tax on books

#26

Post by quanto » Thu, Aug 21, 2025, 6:34 AM UTC

> The latest education report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) raised alarm in Denmark when it found 24% of Danish 15-year-olds cannot understand a simple text, up four percentage points in a decade.

So, in 2015, 20% of 15-yo could not understand a simple text. Isn't that unbelievably high?

Re: 'Reading crisis' prompts Denmark to end 25% tax on books

#27

Post by kqr » Thu, Aug 21, 2025, 6:35 AM UTC

kasperni wrote: post #19

Svip wrote: post #2

The way this article is worded makes it sound like Denmark has a 'book tax'. Denmark has a VAT on goods (and services), which is 25%. But Denmark doesn't have split VAT values, so it's either 25% or nothing; no in-between. So they are just proposing removing the VAT from books. (Some goods and services are already exempt from VAT.) And if you wonder why Denmark doesn't simply lower their VAT or introduce a split VAT…

> the answer is technical inertia (or technical debt, if you will) One of the issues. There are number of others. For example, VAT is a value-based tax. A VAT cut gives the biggest savings to people who spend the most. Since wealthier people typically spend more, they would save more money in absolute terms. For example, a family with a food budget of 3,000 kr. would save 300 kr., while a family with a food budget of…

Hmm. You say "tax break" but I could argue split VAT results in the opposite: a hike in consumption tax. The base VAT rate can be set higher if the VAT on desirable consumption is lower. I.e. it's not that rich people pay less tax for books -- it's that rich people pay more tax for non-books!

Re: 'Reading crisis' prompts Denmark to end 25% tax on books

#28

Post by geysersam » Thu, Aug 21, 2025, 6:38 AM UTC

uoaei wrote: post #16

Svip wrote: post #2

The way this article is worded makes it sound like Denmark has a 'book tax'. Denmark has a VAT on goods (and services), which is 25%. But Denmark doesn't have split VAT values, so it's either 25% or nothing; no in-between. So they are just proposing removing the VAT from books. (Some goods and services are already exempt from VAT.) And if you wonder why Denmark doesn't simply lower their VAT or introduce a split VAT…

What is the primary reason for hard-coding these kinds of things? Gotta imagine CScientists would have debated this during the design phase. I have some hypotheses, are any of these right? * correctness/verifiability analyses * security? in compiled tools (prevent malicious re-configuration) * an assumption of the inertia of law * general incompetence/naivete ???

Now VAT is 12% on Tuesdays. Did you "hard code" that VAT is constant across weekdays? The naivite..

Re: 'Reading crisis' prompts Denmark to end 25% tax on books

#29

Post by arghwhat » Thu, Aug 21, 2025, 6:39 AM UTC

Svip wrote: post #2

The way this article is worded makes it sound like Denmark has a 'book tax'. Denmark has a VAT on goods (and services), which is 25%. But Denmark doesn't have split VAT values, so it's either 25% or nothing; no in-between. So they are just proposing removing the VAT from books. (Some goods and services are already exempt from VAT.) And if you wonder why Denmark doesn't simply lower their VAT or introduce a split VAT…

Note that while you have 25% VAT on things, actual VAT accounting is fully dynamic and banking and accounting systems handle this just fine.

On the incoming side, bills can come from other countries with an entirely arbitrary VAT value, so there the VAT value is recorded from the bill.

On the VAT refund side, arbitrary values are used even for Danish VAT, as companies can get full, fixed fraction or even entirely variable fraction if VAT refunded. For example, a company dinner can only be partially VAT refunded as you had private benefit of food, and VAT refund of an asset like a van is the set by the ratio of intended company vs private usage.

On the outgoing side, most banking and accounting systems would be prepared for other EU countries.

There's definitely going to be something hardcoded somewhere (including over 9000 times in the tax systems themselves), but the point is that VAT is already a dynamic size.

Re: 'Reading crisis' prompts Denmark to end 25% tax on books

#30

Post by kqr » Thu, Aug 21, 2025, 6:39 AM UTC

uoaei wrote: post #16

Svip wrote: post #2

The way this article is worded makes it sound like Denmark has a 'book tax'. Denmark has a VAT on goods (and services), which is 25%. But Denmark doesn't have split VAT values, so it's either 25% or nothing; no in-between. So they are just proposing removing the VAT from books. (Some goods and services are already exempt from VAT.) And if you wonder why Denmark doesn't simply lower their VAT or introduce a split VAT…

What is the primary reason for hard-coding these kinds of things? Gotta imagine CScientists would have debated this during the design phase. I have some hypotheses, are any of these right? * correctness/verifiability analyses * security? in compiled tools (prevent malicious re-configuration) * an assumption of the inertia of law * general incompetence/naivete ???

Imagine the complexity of correctly accounting for a VAT when rates vary dependin on product type -- and doing it across an entire national economy! I'm glad they don't support that for as long as they don't have to.

Is it doable? Sure. Does it need resources that could be more fruitfully applied elsewhere? Probably.