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

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

#61

Post by lostmsu » Thu, Aug 21, 2025, 5:39 PM UTC

rsynnott wrote: post #57

rasz wrote: post #52

Variable/exempt VAT on certain goods often leads to funny exploitation. In Poland we got a ton of media (games, movies, pr0n) sold as magazines/books to get 8% instead of 22% VAT. Here an example from CD Project (Witcher and Cyberpunk guys) https://gamerweb.pl/gry-z-serii-gamebook-w-sieci-sklepow-bie... Gamebook, a book bundled with "free" game :)

This is supposedly why the Playstation 2 came with a BASIC interpreter in Europe; they were attempting to have it classified as a computer (no import duties) rather than a games console (duties, at the time). I _think_ part of the motivation for Linux on the PS3 may have been something similar.

This is actually brilliant. If worded carefully, we could disincentivize closed gardens by adjusting VAT.

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

#62

Post by ninalanyon » Thu, Aug 21, 2025, 6:31 PM UTC

This will make no difference at all to the reading skills of Danish 15 year olds. My three children are older than that and never read books. The do however read a lot of text and are perfectly competent at it. But the text they read is on a computer screen or a mobile and is rarely anything paid for, a lot of it is fan fiction related to a major online game.

The idea that you can convince a teenager who has grown up with the internet at their fingertips to buy books by reducing the price by 20% is laughable. And they won't read books provided at no cost either.

The 24% who cannot read well have simply been failed by the schools they attended and it is there that the politicians must look for the reasons and also the solutions.

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

#63

Post by StopDisinfo910 » Thu, Aug 21, 2025, 10:04 PM UTC

StopDisinfo910 wrote: post #38

Svip wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> The real problem is actually less the exact rate of 25%, but rather that most of the systems only assume one rate. This can’t be the case. You have to apply the VAT of their own country to customer from other part of the union and some services are exempt. In all likelihood, most systems in Denmark already supports using different VAT for different products. Plus, most accounting systems won’t be Denmark specific a…

Can someone explain to me why I do sit at -2 on a perfectly factually valid comment? Is VAT so foreign to American they are actually lost by how intra-community purchases work and how VAT is collected? Are the Danes here simply never exporting anything?