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Sugar tax surprise in U.K. budget, but growth forecasts cut
- nly 11y agoWon't manufacturers largely just start augmenting their produce with a plethora of sweeteners?
- dave2000 11y agoDepends if they want their customers to complain of horrible aftertastes. First they came for the fizzy drinks, and I did nothing because.... well, I waddled up to say something but by the time I got there they'd gone.
- sp332 11y agoThose sweeteners don't contribute to obesity as directly as sugar does, so that's a net positive for public health.
- DanBC 11y agoSugar has a much easier to measure impact on health - dental hygeine and obesity. The thing about British teeth? It's sort of true. Tooth extraction is a leading cause of child hospitalisation. (Most common cause for children between 5 and 9). This tooth decay is mostly preventable. https://www.rcseng.ac.uk/news/sharp-increase-in-children-admitted-to-hospital-for-tooth-extraction-due-to-decay https://www.rcseng.ac.uk/news/sharp-increase-in-children-adm... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-33498324 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-33498324 > A report by the Royal College of Surgeons (RCS) published earlier this year showed tooth decay was the most common reason five to nine-year-olds were admitted to hospital. > Approximately 46,500 children and young people under 19 were admitted to hospital with tooth decay in 2013-14, with 25,812 in the five to nine age group, a 14% increase since 2010-11. http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/feb/27/england-hospital-treatment-children-severe-tooth-decay http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/feb/27/england-hospi...
- sghi 11y agoYes, British teeth could be better but they're not actually as bad as people think - http://www.bmj.com/content/351/bmj.h6543.long http://www.bmj.com/content/351/bmj.h6543.long shows on average in the US kids are missing more teeth than in the UK, for instance
- ars 11y agoSell a two part bottle, with the sugar in a separate compartment that you mix yourself - or don't mix, as you wish. If the tax is high enough it might be worth it for them to do that.
- _delirium 11y agoWeird combination of tax hikes and cuts. I would guess this is more about making the numbers in the budget add up by raising some revenue from "alternative" tax sources, but who knows. Taxes to be cut: top-rate capital gains, corporation tax, income tax for some brackets Taxes to be raised: tobacco duty, soda duty, tax on insurance
- Brakenshire 11y agoThe sugar tax money doesn't go into general taxation, it is ring-fenced as extra funding for school sports.
- JoeAltmaier 11y agoBut is it really? CA puts lottery money into the school fund. But then, every year, they vote to reduce the school fund by exactly the amount the lottery covers. So the lottery balance ends up in the general fund instead.
- grokys 11y agoNot weird at all from where I stand: taxes cut to the rich, raised for the poor. Standard policy for Mr Osbourne.
- corin_ 11y agoYep. I'm as depressed as I expected to be by this budget. And I'm lucky enough to fall into the "personally benefits from these policies" group, can only imagine how much more I would fucking hate that man if his evil policies directly affected me. Urgh.
- hackerboos 11y agoFuel duty frozen for a 6th year running. The Conservative's "green crap" [1] is all but dead... [1] - http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/nov/21/david-cameron-green-crap-comments-storm http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/nov/21/david-cam...
- nostromo 11y agoFunny how soda is targeted by politicians but sugary coffees are not. I suspect it's a class issue: politicians see soda as something that poor, obese people drink, but a white chocolate mocha is not.
- nathancahill 11y agoIt's terrible! Those drinks seem to be a socially acceptable way to eat a pint of ice cream and whipped cream at 8am. Because it has "coffee" in the name.
- maxerickson 11y agoI don't think politicians routinely target soda either. Bloomberg targeted sugary drinks, there was no exception for Starbucks. What soda banning events to you believe constitute this pattern?
- DanBC 11y agoIn England a lot of the talk of sugery drink tax has focused on sodas, with a bit of Public Health[1] awareness raising about fruit juices, and some very recent media attention on the ridiculous amounts of sugar in coffee drinks. [1] The organisation Public Health.
- wahnfrieden 11y agoA lot of the media coverage of this spoke about it in terms of "big gulp" sodas and the like, or stores that allow any size soda for the same price (incl. very large ones), which it seems led to this perception of the issue.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- alextgordon 11y agoOr fruit juices. Orange juice has almost as much sugar as coca cola.
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- tn13 11y agoTax to alter people's behavior ? That never ends well for anyone.
- skyyler 11y agoI'm pretty sure that cigarette taxes have made more than a few people quit smoking.
- distances 11y agoAlso, many countries tax alcohol heavily to keep the consumption in check. The topic can be debated, but it does have a direct positive effect on public health, domestic violence, and untimely deaths.
- tn13 11y agoBut does that factor in the untimely deaths because of moonshine, smuggling and higher compliance cost for those into alcohol business ?
- LanceH 11y agoLike Eric Garner.
- refurb 11y agoWhat percentage of the decline in smoking is due to taxes and how much to health education?
- DanBC 11y agoI'd be interested to know. People know that "smoking is bad and increases risk of death", but most people have no idea just how bad or why. The public health message of "smoking is harmful" hasn't changed much over the past twenty years. The amounts of tax and the prohibitions on smoking in public buildings have.
- tn13 11y ago
- nemof 11y agothis really wasn't a surprise, but it sure gives the press a different headline tomorrow than "another round of austerity" or "it's just not working". not to mention, and to my utter horror, all schools in England will be turned into academies, and in doing so pass out of public hands into private ownership. A naked landgrab. Fucking disgusting.
- taurath 11y agoAusterity? It looks like they're raising the threshold for the top tax rate, lowering the corporate tax rate, and lowering the capital gains tax rate. That sounds like neoconservative trickle-down economics with handouts to the richest to me rather than belt tightening.
- akhatri_aus 11y agoI'm a bit confused by this, who are the private owners after they're converted to academies? There are surely so many schools to do this overnight..
- alexbilbie 11y agoAcademies are self-governing non-profit charitable trusts and may receive additional support from personal or corporate sponsors, either financially or in kind
- bcheung 11y agoSeems counterintuitive to tax something that you are subsidizing. Start by getting rid of the subsidies and that will naturally raise the price. Effectively it is the same thing but it is fairer and less administrative hassle for the government.
- CM30 11y agoI have to be honest and wonder exactly how much a sugar tax would actually affect here. I mean, as someone actually living in the UK, the issue (if there is one) is that the prices for sugary drinks are literally at rock bottom; you can get a cheap litre or so of lemonade for about 15 pence. Doubling that price is pretty much going to be completely useless at actually making a difference. As for whether it's class focused... well, the other BBC article on the matter says that only milk and pure fruit juices are exempt, along with the smallest companies/producers: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-35824071 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-35824071 So it probably will hit the likes of Starbucks and Costa as much as the likes of Coca Cola and Pepsi. Whether it makes a difference there... probably not. It's like the bag charge, fairly useless to a lot of people. As for the other taxes... some seem decent enough, though the tax cuts aimed at higher earners is as ridiculous as ever.
- sanjiwatsuki 11y agoFor those interested in how the sugar tax might affect things going forward, the NBER did an early study on the effects of the sugar tax on Mexico [0]. [0] http://www.nber.org/papers/w21197.pdf http://www.nber.org/papers/w21197.pdf
- SinomaSo 11y agoWhat's the TLDR?
- sanjiwatsuki 11y agoFor a soda tax to work and reduce consumption, the price for soda must rise. The cost of the taxed drinks, indeed, sharply rose. The cost of the other untaxed drinks that were caloric substitutes, like juice or milk, did not go up. This suggests that people were not just substituting soft drinks for other high calorie drinks. Early results suggest that the tax may achieve its goal of weight loss, but it is too early to tell.