Publishers urge slashing of VAT on book production

Greek publishers are calling for a drastic reduction of value-added tax in the production of books (printing, bookbinding etc), which is currently at 24%, to 6%, as that on sales, in order to stay afloat.

Speaking to Kathimerini, several of the publishers making the request to the Finance Ministry said the difference between VAT on sales and production costs is depriving them of liquidity, driving small businesses to despair and making larger ones opt for the lower costs offered by production units abroad.

According to Yannis Konstantaropoulos, publisher of Minos and president of the Association of Greek Books, publishers “prepay very high VAT, which, however, is not offset by the low VAT of sales.”

“We must have a 400% profit for this to happen,” he said, noting that when there is such a big difference between VAT, “we always end up being owed a refund from the tax office, which can come in three months.”