The proposed increase in the VAT rate on books from 9% to 21% will have strong effects on the accessibility of higher education. Academic information is a crucial source of knowledge, and this measure will lead to an increase of the financial burden for students, who already face high study costs.
In addition, it will become harder for the Library to fulfill its task of offering academic information. This additional burden on knowledge exchange directly affects the core values of the EUR and the Library. The university strives to provide widely accessible, high-quality academic infrastructure, but this increase undermines this goal.
The negative effects of this tax increase extend beyond the universities and students. Innovation in the Netherlands will be affected as well, as access to knowledge is essential for progress and development. The increase not only hampers the international competitiveness of the Netherlands, but also has serious implications for national security. For example, lack of access to up-to-date scientific information could slow down knowledge building around the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI).
Therefore, the Library, together with the other academic libraries in the Nederlands and the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, express their support for the campaigns boekenpetitie.nl and geenhogerebtw.nl. These initiatives call for action against the proposal to increase VAT on books and various scholarly information resources by 12%.
We urge everyone to sign the petition and speak out against this measure.