Sugar Tax

PasturesNew

Generali wrote: »

Not that I am aware of.

Diabetes patients are quite annoying versus smokers with cancer or heart disease in that they tend to hang around rather than doing us a favour and dying cheaply.

Diabetes patients tend to do expensive things like go blind or need extremities chopping off (arms and legs).

According to today's DM, the font of ALL genuine medical advice and information, you can "cure" diabetes simply by not scoffing for 8 weeks.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3503734/Dieting-just-eight-weeks-reverse-diabetes-Experts-say-restricting-food-two-months-eradicate-disease.html

Type 2 diabetes can now be understood to be a metabolic syndrome potentially reversible by substantial weight loss, and this is an important paradigm shift

My dad's disappeared when he stopped eating.

antrobus

mwpt wrote: »

Oh well, we get some extra tax to pay for the health care then.

Sadly, no.

The tax take is going to be spent on sport in primary schools. In England at least. The others can please themselves as per usual. Perhaps the English can hope for some better quality footballers in future.

antrobus

cells wrote: »

A tax per gram of sugar might have been more logical...EDIT: 1p per gram would not be possible! would result in nearly £15 billion in taxes which would be unsustainable. Maybe a 0.1p per gram tax might just about be acceptable/workable.

Norway; 7.05 kroner per kg.

I think that's about 80p per kg, or 0.08p per gram. A gram isn't a lot you know. A teaspoon of sugar weighs about 4 grams.

Mojisola

AIUI, the drinks manufacturers will pay the tax, based on their production; it won't be added on at point of sale and collected from thousands of shops, pubs, cafes, etc.

mrginge

Things would be so much simpler if we just abolished the nhs and let people pay for their own healthcare....
_pale_

Mojisola

mrginge wrote: »

Things would be so much simpler if we just abolished the nhs and let people pay for their own healthcare....
_pale_

Yes, loads of the poor and disabled would die off young and make everything so much nicer for everyone else.

antrobus

Mojisola wrote: »

AIUI, the drinks manufacturers will pay the tax, based on their production; it won't be added on at point of sale and collected from thousands of shops, pubs, cafes, etc.

Like excise duty you mean?

I'd imagine that fuel duty is collected in bulk from the people who make the stuff, rather than the individual retailers that sell it. But I don't see how that changes the economics. If a retailer is paying more for a particular product because it is now subject to a tax, then it is going to charge more for it than a similar product that is not taxed.

The tax is just another cost factor.

Mistermeaner

how about tax rebates for being fit and healthy. we often punish the bad but dont reward the good.

Ive not seen a doctor for about 25 years. Surely Im owed something

antrobus

Mistermeaner wrote: »

how about tax rebates for being fit and healthy. we often punish the bad but dont reward the good.

Ive not seen a doctor for about 25 years. Surely Im owed something

Don't be silly. You should be paying an extra tax levy.:)

It's all those healthy blighters that live until they are 95 that are the burden on the NHS and the tax payer collecting their pensions and free bus passes. What we want is more people who drop dead when they're sixty-four before they get a chance to collect a penny and clog up the NHS wards with their constant complaints of dodgy hips and flimsy knees.

mrginge

Mojisola wrote: »

Yes, loads of the poor and disabled would die off young and make everything so much nicer for everyone else.

That's a terrible thing to say.