MANAGER
Norway is an up-to-date, well-orientated society. Media diversity has played a major role in this.
ALSO MEDIA MINISTER: Culture and Equality Minister Lubna Jaffery must show strength in the discussion about VAT on media. Photo: Marit Hommedal / NTB Show more
Editor: This is an editorial from Dagbladet, and expresses the newspaper’s view. Dagbladet’s political editor is responsible for the editorial.
Published on Friday 07 July 2023 – 12:29
Then the VAT, popularly called VAT, was introduced in 1970, newspapers and books were among the groups that were exempted. It was pointed out that Norway is a small linguistic community and that this would help to take care of language and culture. It was also important to preserve the diversity of opinion. Norway had, and still has, a great many news broadcasters.
The VAT rules still managed not keeping up with technological developments. When several Norwegian media developed digital subscription services in the early 2010s, subscribers had to pay VAT for news they read on digital platforms, while the same news was exempt from VAT in paper format. The Ministry of Finance’s principled view of the VAT regime trumped this paradox until then Culture Minister Thorhild Widvey (H) was at the forefront of removing VAT on digital news media.
This has been highlighted as a good thing by all her successors, including the recently departed Anette Trettebergstuen (Ap). That is why it came as a surprise both to Trettebergstuen, media consumers and the media industry that the Ministry of Finance, in connection with last year’s national budget, removed the VAT exemption for news in audio and video. In other words, people can still buy a paper newspaper free of charge, while they now have to pay VAT for news services provided by, for example, TV2. Text and still images are exempt from VAT. Audio and video are no longer exempt from VAT. The year was therefore 2022.
The proposal was made presented without notice and adopted without hearings and the like. The change in the law had to be in place before the turn of the year and the Ministry of Finance was not reprimanded for the slippage of Norwegian news consumers. But in the Storting, a yellow card was handed out, a request decision to nevertheless include news broadcasting in audio and video, as most media houses now do.
The answer from the Ministry of Finance is now out for consultation. It is accommodating to a certain extent, but largely bears the stamp of an old-fashioned view of the media and opens up to a small extent the innovation that Norwegian media companies have made a trademark of in recent years. A side effect is that it also helps to further strengthen NRK, especially towards TV2, but also towards other media companies.
We have a new one media minister in Lubna Jaffery (Ap). It is not her ministry that has drawn up the modification, but at least now she has time to read up on the matter. The new proposal is still old-fashioned and tacky. The consultation deadline expires in a few weeks and she should leave the consultation responses as part of the summer reading. Then autumn will show which ministry actually decides.
2023-07-07 10:33:02
#fast #Jaffery
