Wire: July 8, 2026

MARKET

Nearly 70 fashion names ask governments to rewrite the tax math on resale

A group of 69 fashion and textile organisations has signed a joint statement pressing governments in the EU, the United States, and Canada to change the tax treatment of resale and repair, according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, which convened the effort. Signatories include Arc’teryx, Decathlon, Etsy, H&M Group, Lacoste, Primark, Reformation, ThredUp, Vestiaire Collective, Vinted, and Zalando, the Foundation said.

The statement sets out three specific requests, per the Foundation: reduced VAT in the EU and eliminated sales tax in North America on resold goods and repair services, lower labour taxes in the EU alongside tax credits in North America for firms adding resale and repair jobs, and Extended Producer Responsibility to fund collection and sorting at scale. Leyla Ertur, Chief Sustainability Officer at H&M Group, said resale keeps products in use but remains economically penalised today, and called on governments to remove double taxation and cut labour costs, the Foundation reported.

Mooselen View

this is the moment resale stops asking to be tolerated and starts asking to be subsidised like the industrial category it has become. When eleven names of this weight sign the same page, the pitch shifts from consumer trend to policy lobby, and that is a very different kind of power.

NUMBERS

The case for tax relief: margins that could reach 55 percent

A new Ellen MacArthur Foundation report argues that targeted tax and policy changes could lift gross profit margins to as high as 55 percent for resale and around 41 percent for repair, the Foundation said. It frames the current system as one that makes producing new clothing more profitable than reselling or repairing what already exists, because items are taxed at every transaction rather than once at the original point of sale.

The Foundation put the resale market on track to reach $393 billion by 2030, growing at twice the pace of the wider fashion industry. It also noted that brands inside its Fashion ReModel project grew resale, rental, repair, and remaking revenue four times faster than the rest of their business, though that revenue still represents a small share of the total for all 13 participants.

Mooselen View

the margin figure is the whole argument. Resale has never struggled for demand, it has struggled for economics, and a report that ties concrete tax levers to a 55 percent gross margin hands operators the one number a finance minister actually reads.