Swiss town reinvents newspaper tax
The Swiss town of Sitten, in Wallis kanton, wants to introduce a policy that is meant to make distribution of free dailies difficult and expensive. Free dailies (now three national in the German speaking part with a fourth obe to be launched next week) can only be distributed in two public places, of which the railway station is one. Any private party who has a rack or box on its property has to pay an extra tax of €300,- each year. (Persoenlich)
It looks like the reinvention of the old newspaper tax that was abolished in Europe in the 19th century and was known as a ‘tax on knowledge‘ that kept newspapers expensive and prevented many citizens from reading newspapers.
November 30th, 2007 at 7:45 pm
You fail to mention the line in Persoenlich where the mayor argues the new tax is created to pay for negative externalities (ie waste) created by free sheets.
It’s only a response to a pollution problem. The abundance of knowledge today relative to the 19th century makes the comparison at the end a bit sickening, thinking of countries where laws *really* hamper the spread of content.
December 2nd, 2007 at 3:55 pm
If the mayor wants to cut down waste, measures should be taken to solve that. Pollution surely is a problem linked to massive distribution of free newspapers. But just taxing them to avoid them from being published does not seem the right move to me.
December 10th, 2007 at 3:29 pm
I’m from Switzerland. We now have five freepapers and there is a problem with waste. One man is wise, but people are dumb…
It seems very funny to just throw them on the soil. why? I can’t say…
If they pay 300 bucks to the community for cleaning it up. I think that’s all right and fair.
By the way Freepapers have probably the deepest rate of “getting into recovered papers”.
I anyway like reading electronically. I do hate Paper… you know