A tax on knowledge

Abstract

Rumours before the 1985 Spring budget, that the U.K. Chan cellor planned to extend Value Added Tax (VAT) to cover books and journals, gave rise to the National Book Committee's "Don't Tax Reading" campaign to combat the imposition of a tax on knowledge. The implications of a 15% tax on the printed word, particularly for institutions outside VAT such as univer sities and their libraries, and for the continuing economic viability of minority books and learned journals, are serious. This paper looks at the history of taxes on knowledge, at the economic and cultural arguments against VAT proposals, and at practice in other countries.