{"id":163951,"date":"2025-08-21T14:14:19","date_gmt":"2025-08-21T14:14:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/163951\/"},"modified":"2025-08-21T14:14:19","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T14:14:19","slug":"denmark-cuts-25-book-sales-tax-due-to-alarming-low-level-reading-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/163951\/","title":{"rendered":"Denmark cuts 25% book sales tax due to alarming low-level &#8216;reading crisis&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n         Published on<br \/>\n            21\/08\/2025 &#8211; 11:23 GMT+2\n            <\/p>\n<p>          <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"c-ad__placeholder__logo\" src=\"https:\/\/static.euronews.com\/website\/images\/logos\/logo-euronews-stacked-outlined-72x72-grey-9.svg\" width=\"72\" height=\"72\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><br \/>\n          ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p>Denmark is turning the page on one of the world\u2019s steepest book taxes. <\/p>\n<p>The government has announced it will abolish the 25% sales tax on books, a move aimed at counteracting what officials are calling a growing \u201creading crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Danish Culture Minister Jacob Engel-Schmidt said he hopes the change will see more <a href=\"https:\/\/www.euronews.com\/tag\/books\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>books<\/strong><\/a> flying off the shelves. The plan will cost the state an estimated 330 million kroner (\u20ac44m) annually, but Engel-Schmidt argues it\u2019s an investment in the country\u2019s cultural future.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is something that I, as minister of culture, have worked for, because I believe that we must put everything at stake if we are to end the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.euronews.com\/tag\/reading\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>reading<\/strong><\/a> crisis that has unfortunately been spreading in recent years,\u201d Engel-Schmidt told the Ritzau news agency .<\/p>\n<p>He added: \u201cI am incredibly proud. It is not every day that one succeeds in convincing colleagues that such massive money should be spent on investing in the consumption and culture of the Danes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The move follows the release of alarming <a href=\"https:\/\/www.oecd.org\/en\/publications\/survey-of-adults-skills-2023-country-notes_ab4f6b8c-en\/denmark_abd55ade-en.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>literacy statistics from the OECD<\/strong><\/a> (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) which has warned that one in four Danish 15-year-olds cannot understand a simple text &#8211; a figure Engel-Schmidt admits is \u201cpretty shocking.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Surveys also show falling reading levels among teenagers, which experts link to shorter attention spans and the endless distractions of digital life.<\/p>\n<p>While Denmark until now has kept books under its steep 25% VAT, its Nordic neighbours have long gone easier on readers. In Finland, books are taxed at 14%, in Sweden just 6%, and in Norway they\u2019re entirely tax-free.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published on 21\/08\/2025 &#8211; 11:23 GMT+2 ADVERTISEMENT Denmark is turning the page on one of the world\u2019s steepest&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":163952,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[1022,29062,171,35965,1084,6215,620,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-163951","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-denmark","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-literacy","12":"tag-literature","13":"tag-reading","14":"tag-tax","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115067176060848537","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163951\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}