cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/44989415
China has made condoms and other contraceptives more expensive as it tries to boost birth rates … Consumers must now pay a 13 percent value-added tax for contraception including condoms, after Beijing removed exemptions on the products from January 1.
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The government has sought to boost China’s flagging birth rate, concerned about the rapidly ageing and shrinking population, as well as record low marriage rates.
But young people in Beijing told AFP that taxing contraceptives will not address the root issues they say are stopping people from having children.
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“The immense pressure on young people in China today — from employment to daily life — has absolutely nothing to do with condoms,” a resident in her thirties, who wanted to be known only as Jessica, told AFP.
Jessica said there was a notable class divide in Chinese society and many people felt their future was too uncertain to start a family.
“The rich are too rich, and the poor remain poor… (and people) lack confidence in their future, so they may be unwilling to have children.”
Xu Wanting, 33, who read about the new tax online, said she did not believe it would directly increase birth rates.
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China’s leaders, including President Xi Jinping, have pledged to address the country’s demographic problems … But the contraceptives tax is trivial compared to the true cost of raising a child in China, one of the world’s most expensive countries for child-rearing, said Alfred Wu, associate professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore.
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They face concrete obstacles in China, Wu added, such as a weak job market, “prohibitive” housing costs, a stressful work culture and workplace discrimination against women.
A 19-year-old student surnamed Du told AFP in Beijing she felt the impact of more expensive contraceptives would be limited.
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“Young people today… worry about whether they can shoulder the responsibilities of being parents,” she said.
I don’t think you can really draw a line from “how can we increase birth rates” to “lets tax contraceptives”, as this (and other) articles are attempting to.
In Australia, we also have VAT (we call it GST) exemptions for certain groceries (considered essentials). So if you buy milk there’s no VAT but if you buy chocolate milk there’s VAT. You can imagine how it would be politically palatable when VAT was introduced 26 years ago.
The thing is, the exemptions create a heap of complexity and aren’t particularly meaningful in practice. Like does a VAT exemption on bread and milk really help an Australian family? Probably not.
It would be much smarter to just give people an automatic tax credit of $5k a year, being a refund of the VAT on the first $50k of your annual expenses. You could even make this a fortnightly payment. Yes, it sounds like UBI because it is.
Anyhoo. My point is, if I could wave a wand and remove this type of exemption in Australia I would, because it would simplify an unnecessarily complex system.
This article says that the removal of these taxes in China is part of a broader restructure to their VAT system:
https://www.news18.com/explainers/china-begins-2026-with-13-tax-on-condoms-and-birth-control-whats-behind-the-move-ws-l-9803420.html
I don’t think anyone really believes that a $0.01 tax on a $0.10 condom is going to influence someone’s decision to use one.