Sugar Tax

michaels

I believe that it was an excess of dihydrogen monoxide that has lead to the deaths of many seafarers throughout the ages?

cells

antrobus wrote: »

Norway already has a refined sugar tax. So it would appear to be perfectly "implementable". You should already know this.



Besides, it's not as if we don't have experience in this country of similar taxes.



It always does. See tobacco, alcohol, heroin, etc and so forth.



How in God's name can you ensure that supermarkets "sell no more than 5% of all the calories out of the door as added sugar". They have no control over what people buy. The only way you could do that is to issue each and every UK resident (temporary or permanent) with an electronic ration card that measured the calorie content of everything they purchased.

Technically possible no doubt. But a simple per gram sugar tax which would be so much easier (and cheaper) to implement by some factor approaching infinity.:)

P.S. It's not 'added sugar' that's the target, it's 'free sugar'.



What's to stop me ordering stuff online from France? Single market.

Why would the supermarket's find it hard to control the amount of sugar they sell.

For arguments sake if they currently sell 20% of calories as sugar and the regulators wanted that to drop to 10% the super markets might. Get rid of sugar soda reducing it to 18%. Get rid of the higher sugar content confectionery or reduce the isle for confectionary reducing it to 16%. Have the suppliers reduce sugar content in the foods down to 14%. Etc etc

Obviously an individual customer can go in and buy a sugar drink and walk out with 100% sugar. Another customer might buy just a chicken with 0 sugar. However on average it should be possible to reduce sugar content fairly easy.

You avoid smuggling fees. You avoid taxing the poor more for food. And it would likely be quicker and easier to implement and cheaper than a sugar tax.

antrobus

cells wrote: »

Why would the supermarket's find it hard to control the amount of sugar they sell....

Because they have no control over what people buy. Why is that so difficult to understand?

cells wrote: »

...For arguments sake if they currently sell 20% of calories as sugar and the regulators wanted that to drop to 10% the super markets might. Get rid of sugar soda reducing it to 18%. Get rid of the higher sugar content confectionery or reduce the isle for confectionary reducing it to 16%. Have the suppliers reduce sugar content in the foods down to 14%. Etc etc.....

Why not just ban "sugar soda" or "higher sugar content confectionery"? Why only just do it for supermarkets? In fact, what has any of it got to with supermarkets per se?

cells wrote: »

...Obviously an individual customer can go in and buy a sugar drink and walk out with 100% sugar. Another customer might buy just a chicken with 0 sugar. However on average it should be possible to reduce sugar content fairly easy......

Because obviously customers can walk in and buy what they want, and the supermarket has no control over that.

cells wrote: »

...You avoid smuggling fees. ....

I thought the whole point of smuggling was to avoid fees.

cells wrote: »

...You avoid taxing the poor more for food. And it would likely be quicker and easier to implement and cheaper than a sugar tax.

I don't see how. What are you proposing doesn't even make sense.

cells

antrobus wrote: »

Because they have no control over what people buy. Why is that so difficult to understand?



Why not just ban "sugar soda" or "higher sugar content confectionery"? Why only just do it for supermarkets? In fact, what has any of it got to with supermarkets per se?



Because obviously customers can walk in and buy what they want, and the supermarket has no control over that.



I thought the whole point of smuggling was to avoid fees.



I don't see how. What are you proposing doesn't even make sense.

I still don't see why it wouldn't work.

Supermarkets can control what their customers buy. Think of product placement or shelf space or offers

The simplist way would be to not stock as much high sugar products. Also its not just for the supermarkets you could do the same for say the big fast food chains. Limit their sales to 10% sugar and they can then decide how they will go about it. For them its likely that they will just stop selling sugar soda and just offer the no sugar drinks.


I think regulating a certain percent of sales as sugar would be more effective than a sugar tax. I don't for instance a sugar tax would get rid of sugar soda in fast food outlets or pubs but the regulations would

CLAPTON

michaels wrote: »

I believe that it was an excess of dihydrogen monoxide that has lead to the deaths of many seafarers throughout the ages?

dihydrogen monoxide : the frightening facts


http://www.dhmo.org/truth/Dihydrogen-Monoxide.html

michaels

CLAPTON wrote: »

dihydrogen monoxide : the frightening facts


http://www.dhmo.org/truth/Dihydrogen-Monoxide.html

Interestingly there is no safe level of dilution for this horror. Surely a candidate for punative taxation to 'nudge' behaviour change?

CLAPTON

michaels wrote: »

Interestingly there is no safe level of dilution for this horror. Surely a candidate for punative taxation to 'nudge' behaviour change?

given the numbers of deaths world wide, consideration to a complete ban should be made.

kinger101

CLAPTON wrote: »

given the numbers of deaths world wide, consideration to a complete ban should be made.

It's also highly flammable. If you mix it with sodium.

antrobus

cells wrote: »

I still don't see why it wouldn't work.

Supermarkets can control what their customers buy. Think of product placement or shelf space or offers..

The simplist way would be to not stock as much high sugar products. Also its not just for the supermarkets you could do the same for say the big fast food chains. Limit their sales to 10% sugar and they can then decide how they will go about it. For them its likely that they will just stop selling sugar soda and just offer the no sugar drinks.

I think regulating a certain percent of sales as sugar would be more effective than a sugar tax. I don't for instance a sugar tax would get rid of sugar soda in fast food outlets or pubs but the regulations would

If you want to "get rid of sugar soda" then you can just ban it. Governments have the power to do that. (Whether they have the ability to make such a ban effective, is another debate altogether.)

That would be much easier and simpler than creating a whole new food regulation regime, that involved keeping records of the sugar content of every item of food in the UK, monitoring the results for every food outlet in the UK, and then issuing the appopriate penalties and/or sanctions when said outlets breach those limits.

Look, what the government is trying to do is to reduce the consumption of sugar sweetened soft drinks. The easiest way to try and do that is put the price up. It's basic simple economics. You want people to buy more of something, subsidise it; you want to people to buy less of something, tax it. It's really, really, really quite simple.

kinger101

antrobus wrote: »

Look, what the government is trying to do is to reduce the consumption of sugar sweetened soft drinks. The easiest way to try and do that is put the price up. It's basic simple economics. You want people to buy more of something, subsidise it; you want to people to buy less of something, tax it. It's really, really, really quite simple.

The government can't lose either. If it doesn't reduce sugar consumption, they treasury gets more money.