From yesterday period products are now no longer classed as “luxury, non-essential items” and taxed at 5 per cent.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak promised to axe the tampon tax in March’s budget – with VAT on sanitary products now cut to zero.
Felicia Willow, chief executive of women’s rights charity the Fawcett Society, said: “We warmly welcome the scrapping of VAT on all sanitary products from January 1 2021 and congratulate the government on taking this positive step.
“It’s been a long road to reach this point, but at last the sexist tax that saw sanitary products classed as non-essential, luxury items can be consigned to the history books.”
It has been claimed as a ‘Brexit win’
However, he didn’t vote for it in 2015 when it was debated in the Commons. The motion, brought by Labour, was defeated by 305 votes to 287 with just three Conservative MPs rebelling against the whips.
Ok so Brexit arguing aside, everyone is pretty happy about it?
Well, sort of.
The Government Tweeted out that the tax had been abolished, using an image of a tampon to depict it. Seems a pretty obvious pic to use for the announcement, right?
Journalist Adam Garrie tweeted: “Good policy but is this obscene image really necessary?”
His explanation is something to behold.
There have been a lot of reactions on social media to his comments.
Here goes…
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Related: Student spent last of her student loan buying sanitary pads and tampons to tackle period poverty