China Adds Tax to Condoms as It Works to Boost Birth Rates

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 Law, consumers will pay a 13% levy on items that had been VAT-exempt since 1993, when China enforced a strict one-child policy and actively promoted birth control.