{"id":465,"date":"2012-08-13T20:48:28","date_gmt":"2012-08-13T20:48:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/vat-on-e-books-needs-to-be-slashed-deputy-sean-crowe\/"},"modified":"2012-08-13T20:48:28","modified_gmt":"2012-08-13T20:48:28","slug":"vat-on-e-books-needs-to-be-slashed-deputy-sean-crowe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/vat-on-e-books-needs-to-be-slashed-deputy-sean-crowe\/","title":{"rendered":"VAT On E- Books Needs To Be Slashed \u2013 Deputy Se\u00e1n Crowe"},"content":{"rendered":"

VAT\u00a0 On\u00a0E- Books\u00a0Needs To\u00a0Be\u00a0Slashed \u2013 Deputy Se\u00e1n Crowe<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Sinn F\u00e9in Education Spokesperson Deputy Se\u00e1n Crowe has called on the Government to reduce the 23% VAT rate on electronic school books so that the saving can be passed on directly\u00a0to students and their parents.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Dublin South West TD\u00a0was\u00a0supporting calls from the Irish Education Publishers\u2019 Association (IEPA) who claim that the 23% rate means parents and schoolchildren\u00a0are not getting the full benefit from e-books.<\/span><\/p>\n

Deputy Se\u00e1n Crowe said:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe costs of school books rises as children pass through the education system, with parents being charged on average between \u20ac50-and 100 euros\u00a0for books for a Junior Infants pupil and over \u20ac250 for a 1st year pupil. Another factor is\u00a0 the high cost and constant changing of books used in the school curriclum systm\u00a0\u00a0 unless more and more schools implement a\u00a0book rental scheme then many parents will continue to\u00a0 struggle to meet payments for their children’s education.<\/span><\/p>\n

“We also know that the volume and\u00a0weight of schoolbooks\u00a0has impacted negatively on the health of children\u00a0 and\u00a0 has become an increased\u00a0\u00a0 problem\u00a0 in recent years for students\u00a0\u00a0of all sizes and ages..<\/span> The\u00a0 problems of their weight\u00a0\u00a0 has been aired by irish\u00a0educators, parents groups and teachers representatives in\u00a0 various Fora and education conferences \u00a0\u00a0down through the years.<\/span><\/p>\n

”\u00a0The Minister Ruairi Quinn and the Department of Education needs to show\u00a0 initiative and greater\u00a0imagination when addressing the issue of \u00a0books\u00a0 and e-books and their\u00a0long term\u00a0 impact on irish\u00a0students . <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOver one third of Irish schools use an electronic version of a book which imposes an initially high cost on parents when paying for a table computer to read them on. This is supposed to be off-set through the use of e-books which are meant to be cheaper in the long-term with costs down to between 20% \u2013 35%. However, if claims by the Irish Educational Publishers Association (IEPA) are correct, then the 23% VAT rate being charged on electronic books means any\u00a0potential\u00a0savings are being cancelled out.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt is simply not good enough for Finance Minister Michael Noonan to rule out reducing the VAT on e-books by blaming EU laws which require all digitised publications to be treated as a supply of service. Electronic school books are essential to a child\u2019s education and they should be exempt from the excessive\u00a0 VAT rate of 23%. <\/span><\/p>\n

“I fully support the IEPA in its\u00a0call for a reduction in the VAT rate, Finance Minister Michael Noonan needs to wake to the negative\u00a0impact this unfair\u00a0tax\u00a0is having on irish\u00a0parents\u00a0 and encourage the greater roll out of e -books in the Irish education system.”ENDS<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

VAT\u00a0 On\u00a0E- Books\u00a0Needs To\u00a0Be\u00a0Slashed \u2013 Deputy Se\u00e1n Crowe Sinn F\u00e9in Education Spokesperson Deputy Se\u00e1n Crowe has called on the Government to reduce the 23% VAT rate on electronic school books so that the saving can be passed on directly\u00a0to students and their parents. The Dublin South West TD\u00a0was\u00a0supporting calls from the Irish Education Publishers\u2019 Association […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}