This doesn’t seem like nearly enough to fend off the country’s demographic collapse, but it’s hard to argue with the basic logic:

China will impose a value-added tax on contraceptive drugs and devices – including condoms – for the first time in three decades, its latest bid to reverse plunging birth rates that threaten to further slow its economy.

Under the newly revised Value-Added Tax (VAT) Law, consumers will pay a 13 per cent levy on items that had been VAT-exempt since 1993, when China enforced a strict one-child policy and actively promoted birth control.

At the same time, the revision carves out new incentives for prospective parents by exempting childcare services – from nurseries to kindergartens – as well as eldercare institutions, disability service providers and marriage-related services. The changes take effect in January.

Ironically, it was only 30 years ago the Chinese communists engaged in forced abortions, infanticide (mostly girls), and sterilization as part of their “one child” crime against humanity policy.

We will give President Xi credit for understanding the Laffer Curve in his taxation of contraceptives policy. If you tax something, you get less of it.