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Everyone seems to be doing this differently. It makes no sense to not have this apply to candy and cookies. Look at the nutrition facts label, see how many gra

Everyone seems to be doing this differently. It makes no sense to not have this apply to candy and cookies. Look at the nutrition facts label, see how many grams of added sugar there are, and to keep things simple set the the tax at one cent per gram of added sugar. I can't see this being hard to implement.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
MarkLowenstein 4y ago
Or just tax the original sugar production or importation and be done with all the complexity of chasing down a million food companies across thousands of jurisdictions. (Or let people eat whatever they want and stop being a busybody.)
- temporalparts 4y ago
  Production is usually not within the jurisdiction of cities (as they are produced elsewhere and shipped there usually), so cities are limited in what they can do. As to busybody, excess sugar consumption is a public health problems that governments should intervene on, as I believe it is right for them to do in areas like tobacco.
  - irrational 4y ago
    What about alcohol? They tax it, sure, but the tax isn’t high enough to discourage consumption. I’ve never heard of anyone getting in a car and killing people after consuming too much sugar.
    - wyre 4y ago
      After moving from Idaho (no liquor tax) to Washington (heavy liquor tax), the higher taxes certainly discourage my consumption, at least slightly
      - brewdad 4y ago
        It's been a while since I visited BC or Ontario but I recall their liquor and beer taxes led me to purchase less than I had originally planned. I live near the WA/OR border and only buy things in WA that are not available in OR.
    - vintermann 4y ago
      Alcohol taxes definitively reduces consumption, what makes you think it wouldn't? It's not one of the extremely rare Giffen goods which defy the laws of supply and demand. Most alcoholic drinks have a substitute in drinks with less (or no) alcohol in them, competing on price. Moreover, people's consumption is affected by how much is considered "normal" to drink (one of the early, solid findings of alcohol epidemiology), so there's a positive feedback amplifying small changes to consumption habits from other things.
      - yourusername 4y ago
        >Alcohol taxes definitively reduces consumption, what makes you think it wouldn't? In countries where the alcohol tax is high enough it reduces alcohol consumption but massively increases sales of sugar and yeast.
        vintermann 4y ago
        It reduces total consumption. It might relatively increase homebrew consumption, but those are inferior substitutes in the economic sense.
      - kennend3 4y ago
        Here (Canada) alcohol is highly taxed. Take a look at Canada's consumption numbers and see if the "sin tax" accomplished anything.
        vintermann 4y ago
        I'd also need a counterfactual Canada where alcohol taxes were low. We don't have that. But we have other countries and times to compare through, and there really is no question that accessibility affects consumption.
- tayo42 4y ago
  > (Or let people eat whatever they want and stop being a busybody.) These are massive corporations targeting individuals. If you look at obesity rates people are clearly on the losing side here.
- kennend3 4y ago
  In the case of the US you cant easily tax sugar production. The bulk of US sugar comes from "HFCS" (high fructose corn syrup) which is HEAVILY subsidized in the first place. So taxing something you are subsidizing makes zero sense. Remove the subsidy and the price of corn will go up, and with it the price of HFCS.
dehrmann 4y ago
Juice is the especially bad one. It terms of sugar, glycemic load, and feeling full, it might as well be soda.
Brystephor 4y ago
I agree with your premise that this should apply to candy and cookies. I also like your idea of keeping things simple. The hard part, as always, are the edge cases. If the tax is associated directly with sugar in some manner than diet sodas won't be taxed. Another possible albeit silly argument is why not tax sugars in fruit? Note: Im a software engineer. Not a dietician. I really don't know a detailed difference between artificial sugars and natural sugars or how our bodies process them.
- diebeforei485 4y ago
  > Another possible albeit silly argument is why not tax sugars in fruit? Because total sugars and added sugars are not the same thing. It makes more sense to tax added sugars because they are clearly worse, and it strains Medicare/Medicaid budgets.
  - vintermann 4y ago
    Sugars are indeed the same thing whether they came from a fruit or were added (up to the type of sugar). And where labelling restrictions are stricter, it's common to use grape or apple juice to increase the sugar content of drinks and still be allowed to write "No added sugars" on the bottle.
    - diebeforei485 4y ago
      I took "tax sugars in fruit" to mean a tax on a whole banana or other whole fruit based on its natural sugar content. It's well-known that the fiber in fruit makes eating the whole fruit much better than drinking fruit juice. Adding grape juice or apple juice to a snack or drink would still be considered an added sugar on the nutrition label under FDA guidelines[1]. The reason they do that is often to make sure "sugar" isn't the first ingredient in the ingredient list, which have to be listed in decreasing order of weight[2]. Note that the ingredient list and the nutrition facts label are two different things. 1. https://www.fda.gov/food/new-nutrition-facts-label/added-sugars-new-nutrition-facts-label https://www.fda.gov/food/new-nutrition-facts-label/added-sug... 2. https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/how-read-food-and-beverage-labels https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/how-read-food-and-beverage-la...
chrismcb 4y ago
Washington State had had a "candy" tax for at least a decade. I put candy on quotes, because some candy is exempt. But then Seattle added their per ounce sweetened soda tax. The per ounce concept always seemed wrong to me. Because the lower calorie drinks are cheaper but a per ounce tax hits them more. What is worse is a milk based drink is excempt, so milk shakes, the highest caloric drink isn't taxed.
- vintermann 4y ago
  If these results are correct, I expect it's from terrible lobbyist-butchered implementations like that, where a good substitute product (e.g. sugar free soda) is taxed equally much, or a worse substitute product (e.g milkshakes) avoids the tax.
vintermann 4y ago
This is easily circumvented by adding apple juice or grape juice to everything.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

MarkLowenstein 4y ago

Or just tax the original sugar production or importation and be done with all the complexity of chasing down a million food companies across thousands of jurisdictions. (Or let people eat whatever they want and stop being a busybody.)

temporalparts 4y ago
Production is usually not within the jurisdiction of cities (as they are produced elsewhere and shipped there usually), so cities are limited in what they can do. As to busybody, excess sugar consumption is a public health problems that governments should intervene on, as I believe it is right for them to do in areas like tobacco.
- irrational 4y ago
  What about alcohol? They tax it, sure, but the tax isn’t high enough to discourage consumption. I’ve never heard of anyone getting in a car and killing people after consuming too much sugar.
  - wyre 4y ago
    After moving from Idaho (no liquor tax) to Washington (heavy liquor tax), the higher taxes certainly discourage my consumption, at least slightly
    - brewdad 4y ago
      It's been a while since I visited BC or Ontario but I recall their liquor and beer taxes led me to purchase less than I had originally planned. I live near the WA/OR border and only buy things in WA that are not available in OR.
  - vintermann 4y ago
    Alcohol taxes definitively reduces consumption, what makes you think it wouldn't? It's not one of the extremely rare Giffen goods which defy the laws of supply and demand. Most alcoholic drinks have a substitute in drinks with less (or no) alcohol in them, competing on price. Moreover, people's consumption is affected by how much is considered "normal" to drink (one of the early, solid findings of alcohol epidemiology), so there's a positive feedback amplifying small changes to consumption habits from other things.
    - yourusername 4y ago
      >Alcohol taxes definitively reduces consumption, what makes you think it wouldn't? In countries where the alcohol tax is high enough it reduces alcohol consumption but massively increases sales of sugar and yeast.
      - vintermann 4y ago
        It reduces total consumption. It might relatively increase homebrew consumption, but those are inferior substitutes in the economic sense.
    - kennend3 4y ago
      Here (Canada) alcohol is highly taxed. Take a look at Canada's consumption numbers and see if the "sin tax" accomplished anything.
      - vintermann 4y ago
        I'd also need a counterfactual Canada where alcohol taxes were low. We don't have that. But we have other countries and times to compare through, and there really is no question that accessibility affects consumption.
tayo42 4y ago
> (Or let people eat whatever they want and stop being a busybody.) These are massive corporations targeting individuals. If you look at obesity rates people are clearly on the losing side here.
kennend3 4y ago
In the case of the US you cant easily tax sugar production. The bulk of US sugar comes from "HFCS" (high fructose corn syrup) which is HEAVILY subsidized in the first place. So taxing something you are subsidizing makes zero sense. Remove the subsidy and the price of corn will go up, and with it the price of HFCS.

dehrmann 4y ago

Juice is the especially bad one. It terms of sugar, glycemic load, and feeling full, it might as well be soda.

Brystephor 4y ago

I agree with your premise that this should apply to candy and cookies. I also like your idea of keeping things simple. The hard part, as always, are the edge cases. If the tax is associated directly with sugar in some manner than diet sodas won't be taxed. Another possible albeit silly argument is why not tax sugars in fruit? Note: Im a software engineer. Not a dietician. I really don't know a detailed difference between artificial sugars and natural sugars or how our bodies process them.

diebeforei485 4y ago
> Another possible albeit silly argument is why not tax sugars in fruit? Because total sugars and added sugars are not the same thing. It makes more sense to tax added sugars because they are clearly worse, and it strains Medicare/Medicaid budgets.
- vintermann 4y ago
  Sugars are indeed the same thing whether they came from a fruit or were added (up to the type of sugar). And where labelling restrictions are stricter, it's common to use grape or apple juice to increase the sugar content of drinks and still be allowed to write "No added sugars" on the bottle.
  - diebeforei485 4y ago
    I took "tax sugars in fruit" to mean a tax on a whole banana or other whole fruit based on its natural sugar content. It's well-known that the fiber in fruit makes eating the whole fruit much better than drinking fruit juice. Adding grape juice or apple juice to a snack or drink would still be considered an added sugar on the nutrition label under FDA guidelines[1]. The reason they do that is often to make sure "sugar" isn't the first ingredient in the ingredient list, which have to be listed in decreasing order of weight[2]. Note that the ingredient list and the nutrition facts label are two different things. 1. https://www.fda.gov/food/new-nutrition-facts-label/added-sugars-new-nutrition-facts-label https://www.fda.gov/food/new-nutrition-facts-label/added-sug... 2. https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/how-read-food-and-beverage-labels https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/how-read-food-and-beverage-la...

chrismcb 4y ago

Washington State had had a "candy" tax for at least a decade. I put candy on quotes, because some candy is exempt. But then Seattle added their per ounce sweetened soda tax. The per ounce concept always seemed wrong to me. Because the lower calorie drinks are cheaper but a per ounce tax hits them more. What is worse is a milk based drink is excempt, so milk shakes, the highest caloric drink isn't taxed.

vintermann 4y ago
If these results are correct, I expect it's from terrible lobbyist-butchered implementations like that, where a good substitute product (e.g. sugar free soda) is taxed equally much, or a worse substitute product (e.g milkshakes) avoids the tax.

vintermann 4y ago

This is easily circumvented by adding apple juice or grape juice to everything.