Britain to lobby EU to end 'vagina added tax'
Source: Yahoo! News / AFP
London (AFP) - Britain will lobby the European Union and its member states to stop taxing tampons and other women's sanitary products as luxury items, rather than necessities, a junior finance minister promised on Monday.
The vow came after a petition called "Stop taxing periods. Period." reached 252,000 signatures and a parliamentary debate revealed wide political support for making sanitary products exempt from value added tax (VAT), called a sales tax in some countries.
"Frankly, VAT on tampons is the vagina added tax," quipped opposition Labour MP Paula Sherriff in the debate. "Tax on women, pure and simple."
Sherriff had tabled an amendment to a government Finance Bill that demanded a strategy for EU talks on the issue.
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