I’m an avid follower of the progression of the campaign against tampon tax. Tampon tax, you say? They tax our periods? Well, let’s give you a little lowdown on the current situation.
So, for a while, there has been a movement against the governments across the world for taxing what we require for our lady functions. Currently, for all sanitary products, there is a tax of 5% in the UK. This is because they are considered ‘non-essential, luxury’ items. Most recently, a petition was put together and presented to George Osborne, prior to the release of this year’s budget. Unfortunately, it was dismissed. Due to EU regulations, the UK does not have the power to eliminate this tax by itself, it does have to be an EU-wide decision. But the aim of the ‘Stop taxing periods. Period.’ campaign is not only to stop this tax, but to raise awareness through support. There are various channels throughout Europe that are being used to target politicians, and the more support the campaign garners, the more likely it will be that the EU will review the tax.
It was inevitable that this would become mixed up in the run-up to the election. The latest news is from UKIP, who, in an appeal to win some female support, has announced its commitment to scrap the tampon tax. The party’s Head of Policy, Suzanne Evans, is keen to remove the “invidious tax” – but there’s a catch. Of course, the only way in which we’d be able to possibly do this is to leave the EU. Ms. Evans makes a valuable point in highlighting how ridiculous the EU legislation is – but I’m not entirely certain that there’s a little bit more to their sudden support.
UKIP isn’t generally recognised as a party that appeals to women. The latest YouGov poll has placed the party’s support at 15 points from the male voters, but the women lag behind at only 10. So of course it’s been a brilliant idea to jump on the bandwagon with the campaign against tampon tax. And it all helps their anti-EU stance too, so it’s a bit of a win-win situation. But maybe that’s me being quite sceptical.
Personally, I’m not entirely sure that leaving the EU is the best way to go about ending the tax. But it’s another way that the party is trying engage to add you to the list of supporters.
Ta, Nigel.
NJW 