Two supermarkets scrap the ‘tampon tax’

MILLIONS of female shoppers will no longer pay the “tampon tax” at two major supermarkets.

Tesco, and now Waitrose, have become the first major supermarkets to announce they will cut the price of women’s sanitary products and pay the tax so women don’t have to.

It comes after the Government indicated its intention to remove the tax, but said it was unable to do so because of EU rules which state the tax must be levied at a minimum of 5 per cent.

The tax can be scrapped when the UK leaves the EU in 2019, but in the meantime the high street giants are taking action to abolish it themselves.

For years campaigners had lobbied hard for the tax on sanitary products to be scrapped, on the basis that they should be considered as “essential items” and therefore exempt from tax. Many argued it was unfair that the tax applies to tampons but does not apply to men’s razor blades, for example.

In 2015, George Osborne, the former chancellor, announced that revenues from the tax would be given to women’s charities.

The change, which will see the price of sanitary items reduced by the same amount as the tax, will cover 97 branded and own-label products.