Charhinets Offers To Introduce Tax On Foreign Books

They are thinking of deducting a tax also from the Belarusian books published by non-state publishing companies.

The Union of Writers of Belarus (UWB) offers to deduct certain amounts from the sales of foreign books, to the Literature Fund. Chairman of the organization Mikalai Charhinets said this at the congress of the UWB, BelTA writes.

The Union of Writers thinks it reasonable to deduct little amounts, like 1-3% of sales of the foreign literature, brought form the foreign countries. They are thinking of deducting a tax also from the Belarusian books published by non-state publishing companies. The money is planned to be forwarded to “stimulate the development of the Belarusian literature”.

– Exactly this sort of literature prevails at the Belarusian book market. We are raising an issue of protection of our literature at the territory of our country, – Mikalai Charhinets said.

The Union of Writers of Belarus considers it unacceptable to sell “trashy, vulgar, and even cynical literature" in the country.

– As people destined to serve the high morality and spirituality, we raise issues of the writers’ participation in the control over the books sale. I only mean the civil control here, – Mikalai Charhinets underlined.

He also said that the writers were going to seek to reduce the price for books. "There was a strange situation: the publisher had the right to receive margin of the book 15%, and the trade - from 40 to 150%", - Chairman of the Union of Writers has added.