Animal rights organisation uses AI videos to call for VAT reduction at the vet
Animal rights organisation GAIA has launched a campaign featuring AI videos of pets to call for a lower VAT rate for visits to the vet. On its campaign website, people can create an animated video in which their pet addresses the federal Finance minister, Jan Jambon.
GAIA is calling for a reduction in VAT on animal care to 6 per cent, as is the case for livestock farmers. Currently, the rate for private pet owners is 21 per cent.
The organisation believes the current system follows “a twisted logic” that “says a lot about the priorities of the current system”. “Caring for an animal is not a luxury. It is a basic need that plays an important role in the daily lives of millions of Belgians with a pet,” says GAIA in a press release.
Ann De Greef, general director of GAIA, calls the different VAT rates for livestock and pets unfair. “It sends a completely wrong and unacceptable signal to the nearly 3 million Belgian families with a pet: that it is financially more advantageous to keep an animal for slaughter than to take good care of it as a member of the family,” she said.
Via the campaign website, people can make a short video in which their pet is brought to life using AI to ask Finance minister Jambon to lower the VAT rate.
Illustration © PHOTO SINA SCHULDT / DPA
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