Should Government Tax Sugary Drinks? Essay - 1110 Words.
A sugary drink tax or soda tax is a tax or surcharge designed to reduce consumption of drinks with added sugar.Drinks covered under a soda tax often include carbonated soft drinks, sports drinks and energy drinks. The tax is a matter of public debate in many countries and beverage producers like Coca-Cola often oppose it. Advocates such as national medical associations and the World Health.
Imposing tax can prevent obesity and reduce the expenses on obesity meanwhile it will generate more money for obesity treatment and prevention. The tax can also encourage the soft drink company to develop healthier drink. For example the company can use xylitol which is sugarless to replace sugar. Imposing tax on carbonated soft drinks is.
The 'sugar tax' on fizzy drinks has come into force in the UK. Might it signal the end of our love affair with all things sweet? Henry Bodkin travels to Mexico, where cola consumption per capita.
A. Soft Drink Taxes. We construct a set of total and incremental soft drink taxes at the state and quarter level from 1990 to 2006. We follow the strategy used by Tefft (2008) and describe it in this section. 15 The total effective soft drink tax rate is the total tax collected on soft drinks after accounting for sales taxes, food exemptions, and specific excise taxes.
The authors estimate that a reduction of 30% in the sugar content of all high-sugar beverages—a step already implemented by some manufacturers—and a 15% reduction in mid-sugar drinks could result in 144,000 fewer adults and children with obesity, 19,000 fewer cases of type 2 diabetes per year, and 270,000 fewer teeth suffering from decay annually.
The government wants producers to pass on the cost of the tax to supermarkets, which in turn are expected to put up the price of sugary drinks, although they have discretion over how much to.
Many public health advocates think not, and are encouraging state legislators to give consumers a nudge by taxing sugary drinks. The idea is simple: raise the prices of sugary beverages and people will buy and drink fewer of them, reduce their calorie intake and lose weight; use the revenue raised to pay for obesity prevention programs, and you have a win-win situation.