5 ms·

Stop taxing everything. Tax is not the solution for everything. The people buying soda are generally the poor or middle class. All this does it take more money

Stop taxing everything. Tax is not the solution for everything. The people buying soda are generally the poor or middle class. All this does it take more money from those who need it the most. What we need to do is regulate how much sugar you can put into foods. But we can't do that. We have to prop up the corn industry with subsidies. Sugar and HFCS is in literally everything. By adding a sugar tax you're basically saying everything you eat must get more expensive, that'll teach you to eat.

sokoloff 5y ago
I think it’s probably worth examining how well taxing tobacco worked (and where/when it didn’t work).
fighterpilot 5y ago
Tax sugar and give it back as a UBI. That alleviates the regressive tax concern. But I suspect that that's not the real reason you're against it. If your real concern is the expansion of the state, then implement a sugar tax and reduce other taxes. Whatever your concern, a sugar and carbon tax are great ideas (due to incentive alignment) and can be made to work.
- ItsMonkk 5y ago
  Exactly. The tax externalities and dividend system is such an underappreciated idea. Sugar, carbon, and land are things that we move quickly to implement and bring it to more and more externalities.
  - fighterpilot 5y ago
    What do you mean by "dividend" in this context?
    - ItsMonkk 5y ago
      UBI. The verbiage comes from the climate plan[0] using the same mechanism. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_fee_and_dividend https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_fee_and_dividend
- mdbug 5y ago
  I agree with the concept, but not a tax on sugar. With sugar I could at most harm myself, not others. A tax on sugar but not on fat would be discrimination of one diet form or even lifestyle over another. I can offset a lot of sugar with a lot of sport myself.
  - fighterpilot 5y ago
    Sugar isn't an externality so it doesn't have the same justification as a carbon tax, you are right about that. But, it's still significantly better than taxing productive work (the current system), which is why I support it so strongly. In my mind, it's not a question of whether the sugar tax is a great idea, it's a question of whether it's better than current taxes (due to the incentives it fixes). Unless externality taxes can fund the whole budget, we will need to branch out. I don't like the contrast with fat since fat isn't known to be bad. See studies on olive oil consumption, or see studies on how the keto diet might help with chronic disease. Sugar is bad. Taxing sugar will save lives. I'd say the same for alcohol and cigarettes. I also view this as somewhat important for a functioning society. Even though sugar isn't an externality per se, having a society full of sick people isn't conducive to its flourishing, and might have pretty bad unintended downstream consequences. If everyone is depressed and sick, might they vote for a populist autocrat, after being unable to put their finger on what exactly is wrong? See Hitler's 10x explosion of popularity one year into the Great Depression. This is a broad view of externalities which I pay mind to.
    - mdbug 5y ago
      Regarding sugar vs. fat: large amounts of saturated fats are known to be unhealthy. In small amounts, sugar can even be healthy, e.g. after exercise. One problem with taxes on addictive substances is that they have little effect on consumption behavior. A higher tobacco tax makes smokers poorer, but only very few will smoke less as a result.
      - fighterpilot 5y ago
        > One problem with taxes on addictive substances is that they have little effect on consumption behavior. Has this been studied? I get that we expect a lot of price inelasticity due to the nature of addiction, but I wonder how true that is. One study[1] I'm reading now about a natural experiment on cigarette taxes. It worked a bit. There was an immediate decrease of 0.75% after the 25% tax was implemented, and it continued to decrease by 0.02% month-on-month afterwards (although part of that 0.75% decrease might be the existence of untaxed substitutes, and part of that 0.02% monthly decrease might be a global trend). This[2] seems quite optimistic about taxes' ability to reduce demand. However, the data they share is not a nice natural experiment, so I don't put too much weight into it. This one[3] is saying demand isn't inelastic at all. This one[4] on sugar is saying a 10% price increase leads to a 13% reduction in demand. > A higher tobacco tax makes smokers poorer Yes, but an income tax makes workers poorer. I'd rather tax destructive behavior than productive behavior, as long as demand isn't too inelastic, given that we literally have to choose between them in order to raise sufficient revenue for the state. I admit that I should read more studies on exactly how inelastic it is before coming to a conclusion on that, though, but my cursory reading seems to support that it isn't overly inelastic. > large amounts of saturated fats are known to be unhealthy I wouldn't mind taxing that as well. I'm aware there's a point at which it becomes a bit too complicated, though. Start simple with sugar, alcohol and tobacco, and add other things like saturated fats based on the weight of evidence and whether it can be done simply and easily. > In small amounts, sugar can even be healthy, e.g. after exercise. Yeah. Similar to how alcohol might be healthy for people with heart disease. These are edge cases, and the tax will distort the market for these edge cases. But taxation is always a blunt instrument, and the broad alignment of incentives 99% of the time with a sugar tax is correct, unlike with a property tax (not a land tax) or an income tax where you get a misalignment almost all the time. [1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2667(19)30203-8/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2... [2] https://www.who.int/tobacco/mpower/publications/en_tfi_mpower_brochure_r.pdf https://www.who.int/tobacco/mpower/publications/en_tfi_mpowe... [3] https://iris.paho.org/bitstream/handle/10665.2/31303/v40n4a06-eng.pdf?isAllowed=y&sequence=5#:~:text=Results.,an%208.7%25%20decrease%20in%20consumption https://iris.paho.org/bitstream/handle/10665.2/31303/v40n4a0.... [4] https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-017-4098-x https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s...
joefife 5y ago
Scotland introduced a sugar tax. As a result, many of the most popular products switched to sugar substitutes. For example, Scotland is one of the few countries in the world where Coca-Cola is not the most popular fizzy drink. Irn Bru is. Following the sugar tax, Irn Bru changed the recipe to use alternative sweeteners. Some people complained, and there is an original version, but it is far more common to see the sugar free version used. In this case, the tax works.
- qwertygnu 5y ago
  Are the alternative sweeteners any better for people's health and/or the environment? If not, then it's hard to say the tax "worked". If so, what are they?
flavius29663 5y ago
I am personally against taxes, but a sugar tax (or at least eliminating corn subsidies) would be great IMO. We can protect the agriculture by other means, say import bans, rather than massive subsidies.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
neogodless 5y ago
While I partially agree, I think it's for different reasons. Mostly those being "you cannot accurately predict how taxing will play out." But "poor or middle class" people choosing $2 soda over $3 orange juice... might choose $3 orange juice over $2 soda that has a $2 tax slapped on it. You cannot argue "they'll just keep buying the same thing when it's taxed all to hell." (Orange juice probably isn't much better than soda, but that's not the point of my argument.) Sugar is not "literally in everything." Not for the dictionary meanings of "literally" and "everything." Though it does seem that yes - the corn industry, especially HFCS should not be subsidized... the exact opposite of taxing! So repeal those subsidies, and maybe put taxes on HFCS at the industry level (rather than the consumer level). If industry, rather than the government, want to foot the bill for HFCS and sell it at a loss, then at least we've shifted the problem.
- RHSeeger 5y ago
  Sadly, literally does actually mean "not literally" now > 2 : in effect : virtually —used in an exaggerated way to emphasize a statement or description that is not literally true or possible https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/literally https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/literally
- base698 5y ago
  > Sugar is not "literally in everything." Not for the dictionary meanings of "literally" and "everything." I think you know what he meant. I remember having a similar discussion with my dad. He was surprised to learn his peanut butter and bread both had sugar as one of the top ingredients. Sauces in a lot of restaurants have it in high quantities. Even things like beef jerky can have twenty grams of sugar per serving.
alecst 5y ago
I guess from your perspective, people will buy something they want no matter how expensive it is.
option 5y ago
taxes are one of the best tools to incentivize behaviors we want and disincentivize the ones we don’t. Trouble is that too few people understand this and therefore politicians present taxes as fair/unfair
valenterry 5y ago
> What we need to do is regulate how much sugar you can put into foods. How about we first find out what actually causes diabetes. Not what correlates with it, but what really causes it. And then how we can stop that. You can tax or forbid sugar all you want, but is it gonna stop diabetes? Will people who eat tons of other "empty carbs" really not get diabetes? I'm not so sure. Instead of restricting peoples lifes, I would much rather opt for giving them opportunities. Such as providing discounts for gyms or other ways of working out.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- ahnick 5y ago
  I didn't really think sugar causing obesity (and in turn causing diabetes) was open to debate? People gain weight because they consume too many calories and then eventually overweight people develop diabetes. The big calorie contributor to modern diets is the sugar content in food. For example, there are no shortage of stories of people losing weight just by cutting out soda from their diets. Now, some people will change their life through incentives and some people won't. The nice thing about a sugar tax is that if the funds are appropriated for health care funding or UBI for low income individuals, then you can provide more of the opportunities you were talking about for people to get healthy (gym discounts, nutrition consults, etc.). The tax is two parts. Disincentivize the purchasing of high sugar content food and fund discounts or incentives that improve health outcomes.
  - valenterry 5y ago
    > I didn't really think sugar causing obesity (and in turn causing diabetes) was open to debate There is no debate that there is a correlation, but that's not a causation. Also, what is it now, sugar or obesity? Because if it is obesity, then shouldn't we (by your logic) tax everything that leads to obesity and not just sugar? > People gain weight because they consume too many calories and then eventually overweight people develop diabetes. But why do they consume too many calories? There was a post here on HN not long ago that claimed that the micro-nutritions (like minerals) of many vegetables have declined over the years. Maybe that contributes much more to "eating too much" than anything else. That's something to research first, before taxing stuff based on our gutfeeling imho.
ahnick 5y ago
It will teach people to eat things with less sugar. It's behavior modification via people's pocketbook. If you appropriated all funds derived from a sugar tax back into health care funding for people below a certain AGI, then it is probably a great way to improve health outcomes.
gdilla 5y ago
you can do both. incentives, and disincentives.

sokoloff 5y ago

I think it’s probably worth examining how well taxing tobacco worked (and where/when it didn’t work).

fighterpilot 5y ago

Tax sugar and give it back as a UBI. That alleviates the regressive tax concern. But I suspect that that's not the real reason you're against it. If your real concern is the expansion of the state, then implement a sugar tax and reduce other taxes. Whatever your concern, a sugar and carbon tax are great ideas (due to incentive alignment) and can be made to work.

ItsMonkk 5y ago
Exactly. The tax externalities and dividend system is such an underappreciated idea. Sugar, carbon, and land are things that we move quickly to implement and bring it to more and more externalities.
- fighterpilot 5y ago
  What do you mean by "dividend" in this context?
  - ItsMonkk 5y ago
    UBI. The verbiage comes from the climate plan[0] using the same mechanism. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_fee_and_dividend https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_fee_and_dividend
mdbug 5y ago
I agree with the concept, but not a tax on sugar. With sugar I could at most harm myself, not others. A tax on sugar but not on fat would be discrimination of one diet form or even lifestyle over another. I can offset a lot of sugar with a lot of sport myself.
- fighterpilot 5y ago
  Sugar isn't an externality so it doesn't have the same justification as a carbon tax, you are right about that. But, it's still significantly better than taxing productive work (the current system), which is why I support it so strongly. In my mind, it's not a question of whether the sugar tax is a great idea, it's a question of whether it's better than current taxes (due to the incentives it fixes). Unless externality taxes can fund the whole budget, we will need to branch out. I don't like the contrast with fat since fat isn't known to be bad. See studies on olive oil consumption, or see studies on how the keto diet might help with chronic disease. Sugar is bad. Taxing sugar will save lives. I'd say the same for alcohol and cigarettes. I also view this as somewhat important for a functioning society. Even though sugar isn't an externality per se, having a society full of sick people isn't conducive to its flourishing, and might have pretty bad unintended downstream consequences. If everyone is depressed and sick, might they vote for a populist autocrat, after being unable to put their finger on what exactly is wrong? See Hitler's 10x explosion of popularity one year into the Great Depression. This is a broad view of externalities which I pay mind to.
  - mdbug 5y ago
    Regarding sugar vs. fat: large amounts of saturated fats are known to be unhealthy. In small amounts, sugar can even be healthy, e.g. after exercise. One problem with taxes on addictive substances is that they have little effect on consumption behavior. A higher tobacco tax makes smokers poorer, but only very few will smoke less as a result.
    - fighterpilot 5y ago
      > One problem with taxes on addictive substances is that they have little effect on consumption behavior. Has this been studied? I get that we expect a lot of price inelasticity due to the nature of addiction, but I wonder how true that is. One study[1] I'm reading now about a natural experiment on cigarette taxes. It worked a bit. There was an immediate decrease of 0.75% after the 25% tax was implemented, and it continued to decrease by 0.02% month-on-month afterwards (although part of that 0.75% decrease might be the existence of untaxed substitutes, and part of that 0.02% monthly decrease might be a global trend). This[2] seems quite optimistic about taxes' ability to reduce demand. However, the data they share is not a nice natural experiment, so I don't put too much weight into it. This one[3] is saying demand isn't inelastic at all. This one[4] on sugar is saying a 10% price increase leads to a 13% reduction in demand. > A higher tobacco tax makes smokers poorer Yes, but an income tax makes workers poorer. I'd rather tax destructive behavior than productive behavior, as long as demand isn't too inelastic, given that we literally have to choose between them in order to raise sufficient revenue for the state. I admit that I should read more studies on exactly how inelastic it is before coming to a conclusion on that, though, but my cursory reading seems to support that it isn't overly inelastic. > large amounts of saturated fats are known to be unhealthy I wouldn't mind taxing that as well. I'm aware there's a point at which it becomes a bit too complicated, though. Start simple with sugar, alcohol and tobacco, and add other things like saturated fats based on the weight of evidence and whether it can be done simply and easily. > In small amounts, sugar can even be healthy, e.g. after exercise. Yeah. Similar to how alcohol might be healthy for people with heart disease. These are edge cases, and the tax will distort the market for these edge cases. But taxation is always a blunt instrument, and the broad alignment of incentives 99% of the time with a sugar tax is correct, unlike with a property tax (not a land tax) or an income tax where you get a misalignment almost all the time. [1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2667(19)30203-8/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2... [2] https://www.who.int/tobacco/mpower/publications/en_tfi_mpower_brochure_r.pdf https://www.who.int/tobacco/mpower/publications/en_tfi_mpowe... [3] https://iris.paho.org/bitstream/handle/10665.2/31303/v40n4a06-eng.pdf?isAllowed=y&sequence=5#:~:text=Results.,an%208.7%25%20decrease%20in%20consumption https://iris.paho.org/bitstream/handle/10665.2/31303/v40n4a0.... [4] https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-017-4098-x https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s...

joefife 5y ago

Scotland introduced a sugar tax. As a result, many of the most popular products switched to sugar substitutes. For example, Scotland is one of the few countries in the world where Coca-Cola is not the most popular fizzy drink. Irn Bru is. Following the sugar tax, Irn Bru changed the recipe to use alternative sweeteners. Some people complained, and there is an original version, but it is far more common to see the sugar free version used. In this case, the tax works.

qwertygnu 5y ago
Are the alternative sweeteners any better for people's health and/or the environment? If not, then it's hard to say the tax "worked". If so, what are they?

flavius29663 5y ago

I am personally against taxes, but a sugar tax (or at least eliminating corn subsidies) would be great IMO. We can protect the agriculture by other means, say import bans, rather than massive subsidies.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

neogodless 5y ago

While I partially agree, I think it's for different reasons. Mostly those being "you cannot accurately predict how taxing will play out." But "poor or middle class" people choosing $2 soda over $3 orange juice... might choose $3 orange juice over $2 soda that has a $2 tax slapped on it. You cannot argue "they'll just keep buying the same thing when it's taxed all to hell." (Orange juice probably isn't much better than soda, but that's not the point of my argument.) Sugar is not "literally in everything." Not for the dictionary meanings of "literally" and "everything." Though it does seem that yes - the corn industry, especially HFCS should not be subsidized... the exact opposite of taxing! So repeal those subsidies, and maybe put taxes on HFCS at the industry level (rather than the consumer level). If industry, rather than the government, want to foot the bill for HFCS and sell it at a loss, then at least we've shifted the problem.

RHSeeger 5y ago
Sadly, literally does actually mean "not literally" now > 2 : in effect : virtually —used in an exaggerated way to emphasize a statement or description that is not literally true or possible https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/literally https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/literally
base698 5y ago
> Sugar is not "literally in everything." Not for the dictionary meanings of "literally" and "everything." I think you know what he meant. I remember having a similar discussion with my dad. He was surprised to learn his peanut butter and bread both had sugar as one of the top ingredients. Sauces in a lot of restaurants have it in high quantities. Even things like beef jerky can have twenty grams of sugar per serving.

alecst 5y ago

I guess from your perspective, people will buy something they want no matter how expensive it is.

option 5y ago

taxes are one of the best tools to incentivize behaviors we want and disincentivize the ones we don’t. Trouble is that too few people understand this and therefore politicians present taxes as fair/unfair

valenterry 5y ago

> What we need to do is regulate how much sugar you can put into foods. How about we first find out what actually causes diabetes. Not what correlates with it, but what really causes it. And then how we can stop that. You can tax or forbid sugar all you want, but is it gonna stop diabetes? Will people who eat tons of other "empty carbs" really not get diabetes? I'm not so sure. Instead of restricting peoples lifes, I would much rather opt for giving them opportunities. Such as providing discounts for gyms or other ways of working out.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
ahnick 5y ago
I didn't really think sugar causing obesity (and in turn causing diabetes) was open to debate? People gain weight because they consume too many calories and then eventually overweight people develop diabetes. The big calorie contributor to modern diets is the sugar content in food. For example, there are no shortage of stories of people losing weight just by cutting out soda from their diets. Now, some people will change their life through incentives and some people won't. The nice thing about a sugar tax is that if the funds are appropriated for health care funding or UBI for low income individuals, then you can provide more of the opportunities you were talking about for people to get healthy (gym discounts, nutrition consults, etc.). The tax is two parts. Disincentivize the purchasing of high sugar content food and fund discounts or incentives that improve health outcomes.
- valenterry 5y ago
  > I didn't really think sugar causing obesity (and in turn causing diabetes) was open to debate There is no debate that there is a correlation, but that's not a causation. Also, what is it now, sugar or obesity? Because if it is obesity, then shouldn't we (by your logic) tax everything that leads to obesity and not just sugar? > People gain weight because they consume too many calories and then eventually overweight people develop diabetes. But why do they consume too many calories? There was a post here on HN not long ago that claimed that the micro-nutritions (like minerals) of many vegetables have declined over the years. Maybe that contributes much more to "eating too much" than anything else. That's something to research first, before taxing stuff based on our gutfeeling imho.

ahnick 5y ago

It will teach people to eat things with less sugar. It's behavior modification via people's pocketbook. If you appropriated all funds derived from a sugar tax back into health care funding for people below a certain AGI, then it is probably a great way to improve health outcomes.

gdilla 5y ago

you can do both. incentives, and disincentives.