Sugar tax coming?

Northampton, England
April 6, 2018 3:32pm CST
The government has introduced a sugar tax in the United Kingdom for all soda pop and soft drinks, like Coca Cola, Fanta and Red Bull etc. Kids teeth are rotting away here and they are increasingly obese at a young age. Marketing has them drinking this stuff in the icy winter and so not about rehydration anymore. If the drink has sugar in it the drinks giants will be subject to a threshold tax. The tax is an extra 5p in the pound for each 100ml in a canned drink that has high levels of sugar in them and more for plastic bottles, around 48p for two litre bottles. The drinks giants have had time to prepare for it and the tax has worked that way. Companies have replaced sugar with sweeteners to get below the threshold or people like Coca Cola, who refused to change their legendary and secret recipe, simply reduced the can and bottle size without losing much sugar to dip below the threshold. The price rise won’t put kids off but nearly all bands have reduced the sugar to avoid the price rise. The question now is, are the government happy? They should be as sugar in drinks has been cut back but it’s often the case they introduces taxes to make money and being punitive is the way to do it. Speed cameras slow people down if they can see the speed camera but not if there is no camera. The London Congestion Charge worked so well London traffic tumbled. They had to double the tax to cover the admin charge and make some profit. Same with parking charges. People now park away from the town centres where all the wardens, yellow lines and tickets are handed out so the councils buy scooters and employ more wardens to ticket cars further out. Ultimately a tax is about raising revenue and I hope thats not the case with the sugar tax but I expect it is.
5 people like this
5 responses
@JohnRoberts (109841)
• Los Angeles, California
6 Apr 18
Any sugar tax or any kind of tax is all about a government money grab.
2 people like this
@pgntwo (22405)
• Derry, Northern Ireland
6 Apr 18
It's going to be the way of things for a decade or two, the crazy cost of Brexit has to be clawed back somehow - and with companies moving to elsewhere in Europe, income tax is not going to cover it.
1 person likes this
@topffer (42155)
• France
7 Apr 18
I am asking myself if it is not an EU recommendation that Britain had not yet followed. We have this tax on sugared drinks since about 2 years in France.
1 person likes this
@pgntwo (22405)
• Derry, Northern Ireland
7 Apr 18
@topffer Probably. Any excuse to screw a bit more cash out of everyone's pockets...
1 person likes this
@topffer (42155)
• France
8 Apr 18
@pgntwo Sin taxes are a good source of income.
1 person likes this
@Ithink (10106)
• United States
7 Apr 18
I think any kind of tax is a money grab, to line their pockets and has nothing to do with the health of the people.
@toniganzon (77064)
• Philippines
7 Apr 18
Our government has implemented that about a month ago I think and the prices have gone up and yet people still don't care much about it.
@id_peace (17036)
• Singapore
7 Apr 18
Few sugar is good for help