In a move to encourage more people to read, Denmark is moving forward to abolish VAT on books, according to the country’s Minister for Culture. As it stands, Denmark’s tax of 25% on books is the highest in the world, and plays a huge factor into why people in the country are not reading books, being labelled as a “reading crisis”. Jakob Engel-Schmidt, Denmark’s Minister for Culture, announced on Wednesday 20th August, that the country’s government would propose that the tax on books be abolished as part of its budget bill. A move expected to cost 330m kroner a year. It is not every day that one succeeds in convincing colleagues that such massive money should be spent on investing in the consumption and culture of the Danes,” said Engel-Schmidt.