Sugar tax surprise in U.K. budget, but growth forecasts cut

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-35813973

by neverminder • 10 years ago

27 55 10 years ago

bbc.co.uk

nly• 10 years ago

Won't manufacturers largely just start augmenting their produce with a plethora of sweeteners?

dave2000• 10 years ago

Depends 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• 10 years ago

Those sweeteners don't contribute to obesity as directly as sugar does, so that's a net positive for public health.

DanBC5• 10 years ago

Sugar 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-adm...

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-hospi...

sghi• 10 years ago

Yes, British teeth could be better but they're not actually as bad as people think - 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• 10 years ago

Sell 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.

_delirium2• 10 years ago

Weird 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

Brakenshire4• 10 years ago

The sugar tax money doesn't go into general taxation, it is ring-fenced as extra funding for school sports.

JoeAltmaier• 10 years ago

But 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• 10 years ago

Not weird at all from where I stand: taxes cut to the rich, raised for the poor. Standard policy for Mr Osbourne.

corin_• 10 years ago

Yep. 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• 10 years ago

Fuel 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-cam...

nostromo• 10 years ago

Funny 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• 10 years ago

It'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• 10 years ago

I 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?

wahnfrieden• 10 years ago

A 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.

DanBC5• 10 years ago

In 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.

alextgordon• 10 years ago

Or fruit juices. Orange juice has almost as much sugar as coca cola.

DanBC5• 10 years ago

"Evidence base" or "consistent" is not something we see much of in politics at the moment.

stegosaurus2• 10 years ago

Consumption taxes are inherently fraught with 'class issues' - they act in a similar way to parking fines.

If you earn 50K a year then 10 quid for a bottle of wine that cost 2 quid to produce isn't really a problem.

If you earn 10K a year and have nothing left after rent, it is.

Another point to consider is that 'encouraging people to eat healthily' is an attempt to impose a culture - that's half of what a 'class' is (the other half being income/wealth). It's essentially saying - live like us, we're better, society will be better if you're like us.

The elite don't need to care about their impact on the NHS - the middle classes are probably paying enough in taxes - the poor aren't.

Common rhetoric at the moment in the UK is to decry any notion of taxes as redistribution - the poor are openly considered 'scroungers' by the government - it's pretty much business as usual these days for the state to minimize the impact of the poor on the rest of society.

tomp• 10 years ago

'encouraging people to eat healthily' is an attempt to impose a culture

I see it as an attempt to save money, or rather an attempt to account for all the externalities - that is, at least if there is scientific consensus that the measure you're introducing statistically helps people live longer/healthier and reduces healthcare costs (I've no idea if that's the case here).

Brakenshire4• 10 years ago

'encouraging people to eat healthily' is an attempt to impose a culture

This is a crazy way of looking at it. You might as well have said 100 years ago that education beyond 14 was an imposition on the poor. In a lot of cities in the UK there is an 18 year gap in life expectancy between rich and poor areas. Almost 20% of children and 30% of adults in the UK are clinically obese. At some point you have to stop with ideological back and forth and start actually doing something practical.

fweespee_ch• 10 years ago

They should just tax sugar/corn syrup/etc directly rather than how they are handling it.

ajmurmann• 10 years ago

Never thought about this. It's crazy how the US subsidizes corn syrup, but done jurisdictions put a tax on sugary drinks. Thanks for the insight!

Brakenshire4• 10 years ago

I suspect it's a class issue: politicians see soda as something that poor, obese people drink, but a white chocolate mocha is not.

To drink one of those coffees you have to actually go to Costa Coffee or Starbucks. It's too expensive to drink daily for the vast majority of the population. And most people who go to coffee shops don't drink those anyway. All of those would suggest that the public health effects of the two are vastly different. The tax should apply to both, but from a public health perspective I doubt it matters.

ceedan• 10 years ago

I see your argument as support for why it should be taxed just as aggressively. The people who can afford those kinds of drinks could also afford the extra bit of taxes. The companies could also afford those taxes, because the markup on those kinds of drinks is absolutely insane.

The tax on soda seems to be about correcting behavior and raising money, while the tax on sugary coffee drink seems to be mostly about raising money. And extra 0.10 on a mocha whatever isn't going to stop people from buying them.

And most people who go to coffee shops don't drink that anyway.

This isn't true. I worked at a Starbucks while in college and frappuccinos are very very popular. The majority of people who go to Starbucks order drinks with sugar, especially after the morning rush where a many people will just get black coffee... some of those people also add sugar, too. Caramel Frappuccino's and Caramel Macchiato are 2 of the most popular items on the menu, and Frappuccino's are much more popular in the summer.

tn134• 10 years ago

Tax to alter people's behavior ? That never ends well for anyone.

skyyler• 10 years ago

I'm pretty sure that cigarette taxes have made more than a few people quit smoking.

distances• 10 years ago

Also, 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.

LanceH• 10 years ago

Like Eric Garner.

refurb• 10 years ago

What percentage of the decline in smoking is due to taxes and how much to health education?

tn134• 10 years ago

If I remember correctly an ordinary men got choked to death by NYC cops for suspicion of selling cigarettes on streets. Not only that death became an icon of sort for police brutality and racial tensions, it also underlined how many lives the law probably has destroyed. I am not even sure if that is trade-off I would like to make.

In countries like India it is even worse. Increased taxes on mass manufactured cigars means more and more people take to hand made cigars which are far worse than nicotine as they give out lot more of CO.

nemof3• 10 years ago

this 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.

taurath2• 10 years ago

Austerity? 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.

DanBC5• 10 years ago

The belt-tightening is happening at the other end, with cuts to support for people with disabilities.

twoodfin• 10 years ago

What's "neoconservative" about any of those things? What do you think that word means?

akhatri_aus3• 10 years ago

I'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• 10 years ago

Academies are self-governing non-profit charitable trusts and may receive additional support from personal or corporate sponsors, either financially or in kind

johnzim• 10 years ago

They are non-profit trusts established to provide high quality education without needing to be beholden to a Local Education Authority.

nemof3• 10 years ago

private providers (read companies) and charities. it's already happened to thousands of schools. in 2010 there were around 200. five years 3/4 of secondary are academies, but overwhelming majority of primary schools are not.

bcheung• 10 years ago

Seems 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• 10 years ago

I 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

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.

sanjiwatsuki2• 10 years ago

For 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

SinomaSo• 10 years ago

What's the TLDR?

sanjiwatsuki2• 10 years ago

For 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.

Sugar tax surprise in U.K. budget, but growth forecasts cut

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