EXCLUSIVE! Stop Press: Government levies 22 per cent tax on all printing

The tax will be collected from all commercial and packaging printers as part of the GST payment and is estimated to raise over $2 billion in the first year. Concerns about the effect on companies’ cash flow were dismissed by a government spokesman as "part of the cost of doing business.”

“For too long printers have been able to avoid the costs associated with their industry. For centuries governments and families have taught children to read, thereby creating the market for printing, without any financial contribution from the beneficiaries [printers] of this literate population. It is about time printers took up their share of the cost,” said the representative of the Commonwealth Department of Compliance and Penalty.

“In addition, the amount of printed material that is left lying around the environment is one of the most blatant forms of visual pollution. The government has set a target for the elimination of up to 77 per cent of all waster paper and packaging over the next five years.”

The surprise ‘Print Tax’ has provoked howls of outrage from printers around the country who accuse the government of being hostage to the electronic media.

“The television and recording industry is behind this. It’s a vast conspiracy to make printing the scapegoat for the government’s failed media policy. The other media are battling slowing profit share and the idea is that if they can ban printing the population will be forced to rely on television and radio for all information,’ said a furious printer, Bruce Pica, of Devil Printers in Canberra.

The industry through its associations is preparing a fighting fund to stymie the tax initiative.