Caviar, truffles or oil paintings – until recently, in Germany many luxury goods were taxed with the reduced rate of 7% while tampons were taxed with 19%. Unfair? Yes! But German politicians refused to take notice. The Female Company decided to outsmart the sexist law – with the help of impressing insights and a clever strategy: Books are taxed at 7%. Therefore, we sold tampons hidden inside a book in order to avoid the sexist tax. A broad alliance of influencers, journalists, drugstores and politicians supported our claims. With success! On November 7, 2019, Germany abolished the tampon tax.

Caviar, Truffles and even oil paintings – in Germany many luxury goods are taxed with the reduced rate of only 7 percent while tampons and other female sanitary products attract the top value added tax rate of 19 percent. The so-called tampon tax provoked international protests in recent years and has already been abolished in countries like Canada and Kenya and even some US-States. However, in Germany, tampons are still taxed as luxury goods and politicians refused to act. The Female Company, an online shop which sells organic female sanitary products wanted to take the lead in the feminist movement against the tampon tax.

With this tax discrimination Germany hasn’t been alone for long time. However, meanwhile many countries introduced a fair taxation. Australia, South Africa, Kenya and Ireland even completely abolished the tax for tampons. Great Britain and France have at least lowered the tax rate drastically. But Germany still holds on to the highest tax rate – and thus has something in common with Russia, China and many US states.

The founders of The Female Company no longer want to put up with this injustice. The young social startup sells organic tampons and has the mission to break existing taboos regarding menstruation and to enable a fair and payable access to menstrual products for all. This includes the abolition – or at least the reduction – of the tampon tax.

Hardly anyone knows it, although it affects half of Germans: In Germany tampons, sanitary pads and other menstrual products are taxed with the highest rate of 19 %.

That means tampons are considered as luxury goods.

However, “important goods for daily needs“ are taxed with only 7 %. This reduced rate applies to bread, butter and milk, but also to truffles, caviar and oil paintings.

Who made this decision of absurd tax injustice? The German Bundestag, more than 50 years ago; counting 463 men and only 36 women.

We packaged tampons in a book and, thus, sold them with the lower tax rate of 7 percent. In other words: We outsmarted the law with the law itself. But The Tampon Book is much more than a smart packaging that hacked the German tax system. The Tampon Book contains 45 pages with bold illustrations and empowering stories about menstruation, taboo and feminism and promotes a petition which urges the German parliament to discuss the abolition of the tampon tax.

10,000 copies of the book sold out within one week. Germany’s largest private TV networks RTL and Pro7 covered the story. A petition on change.org got the necessary 150,000 signatures. A broad alliance of influencers, journalists and politicians supported our claims. When even Germany’s largest drugstore chain dm decided to sell The Tampon Book, the pressure on the Government became too much. On November 7, 2019, Germany abolished the tampon tax.

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