Book industry seeks tax exemption

Industry associations, academics, and writers express alarm over the long-term consequences of making books more expensive for the masses

The latest salvo against the government’s imposition of value-added tax (VAT) on hitherto exempted sectors came today from Sri Lanka’s book industry, which has called for an immediate reversal of the decision to tax the sale of books at 18%.

Associations representing local publishers, printers, booksellers and importers, writers, and academics came together to voice their opposition to the unavoidable hike in the prices of books consequent to the imposition of VAT, pointing to the pernicious long-term effects it would have on socio-economic development by making access to knowledge unaffordable to many.

“We acknowledge that economic challenges spanning multiple government terms have led to a situation where the broader population has been required to shoulder the financial implications of the gradual national recovery,” the General Secretary of the Sri Lanka Book Publishers Association (SLBPA) Mr. Dinesh Kulatunga told media at a news conference.

“But is it fair that this short-term requirement to boost government revenue should have the longer-term destructive consequence of retarding the education, culture, intellectual progress and personal development of generations of Sri Lankans, and negatively impact the development of the knowledge economy?” he asked.

Speakers representing different stakeholder groups in the book industry also charged that with the indiscriminate extension of VAT to a highly sensitive and vulnerable sector like books, Sri Lanka was also in violation of the UNESCO Florence Agreement of 1950, to which the country was an early signatory and continues to be a Contracting State.