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08 March 2021No fact for the VAT cut on sanitary napkins from the current 22% to 5%, despite online petitions and various initiatives.
The impact of Covid did not change the rate either.
In the 2020 maneuver there was a reduction on biodegradable sanitary pads, not always easy to find on the shelves of pharmacies and supermarkets.
In many countries this is not the case: in the United Kingdom VAT is 5%, in France it is 5.5% and in Germany it is 7%.
While Canada, Ireland and India have abolished it altogether and Scotland has decided to provide female students with pads for free.
In Italy, the petition "Stop tampon tax, the cycle is not a luxury", launched in 2018 by the collective 'Onde rosa', to bring taxation to 4%, has reached 485 thousand signatures on Change.org.
This is also due to the help brought by Coop, which has decided to join the campaign in a concrete way: on the occasion of International Women's Day, from 6 to 13 March all sanitary pads on the shelves are sold as if VAT were reduced to 4%.
And so have many Tuscan mayors, who have eliminated the tampon tax on the packages of sanitary pads sold in municipal pharmacies.
"According to the calculations of the legislative offices, the cost of re-entering sanitary napkins among the goods considered essential, therefore taxed at a reduced rate, would be around 300 million euros", explains Silvia Dedea of the Onde rosa collective. who adds: "Feminine hygienic products must be considered essential goods whose inevitable expense unjustly weighs on those who must use them".
In fact, it is estimated that over a year the reduction of taxation would lead to savings for each woman of 40-50 euros: "Not much, of course, but we must also think of families with a mother and one or two daughters: in this period of emergency also social 150 euros can make the difference ", explains Silvia Dedea.