The Government has graciously decided to repeal the tax levied on printed materials. How kind of them.

The price of books will increase, however, due to

a two per cent non-refundable GCT charge on all imported books (except for religious materials) [that] will be levied at the ports”

I’m not even going to get my feathers ruffled over the fact that religious materials get away Scot-free because clearly the Church is the State’s second mistress (after the IMF, obviously). I’m just going to point out that maybe the Gov’t had never planned to tax books all along, and them threatening to do it and then mercifully rescinding said threat was probably just a power play to get on our good side. Looks like subservience wasn’t the only thing our English masters taught us.

Pax.