Would it be permitted to purchase a cordial or other flavor concentrate? Would you apply for a tax refund with a signed log documenting your beverage preparation events and dilution ratios were below the requisite limit, or would it be more of a self-reporting system where you could flag instances where where a child's clumsy pour or unexpected weather causing higher than forecast evaporation rates pushed their lemonade-stand concoction over the line?
Raw sugar? Highly controlled? Or permissible in batters for the express purpose of creating cake or cake-like solids? I feel that frosting could create a dangerous loophole here where it would be easy to manufacture under the guise of legitimate bakery desserts but would be just a simple step for a backyard chemist to transform into a dangerous _sugary drink_. A popsicle is even worse! Power goes out on your freezer and all of a sudden IRS agents are kicking down your door. No, that's just too dangerous. Best to tax all sugar, solid and liquid.
People may accuse us of going overboard but really we're perfectly justified in taxing people's choices where they have a societal cost e.g., on the healthcare system. Participation in dangerous sports naturally will be taxed next. Sunbathing certainly, but also getting too little sun. Not eating enough fiber should be taxed right out of existence. Sitting down too much we need to eliminate. Flying or driving anywhere for non-essential or recreational purposes is right out. Not having enough friends can impact mental health, so if you can't provide documented evidence of having at least 10 friends your income tax should be raised by a % for each. Recreational boating and swimming outdoors are statistically quite dangerous, we could just ban those completely, nobody _needs_ to drive a boat or jetski around.
I think your comment may have finally changed my views on the subject matter at hand. We should eliminate the taxes on cigarettes, and remove the red tape barring the simple pleasure from humans just because they haven't completed enough revolutions around Sol yet.
In fact, a truly meritocratic society would remove any such barriers. What difference does it make to have a 16 year old pilot a 2 ton general-purpose land vehicle vs an 18 year old? Shouldn't we just give them both a test whenever they personally choose to exercise that freedom, or, better yet, allow our citizens to use their personal property freely at any age so long as they are not intentionally harming others? Surely being able to acquire the down payment for a 2010 Toyota Corolla is the only mark of skill that matters to a thrifty and entrepreneurial society?
And it would be wrong of me with all this talk of individuals to not speak of my favorite Citizens United—NGOs! If adding so much sugar to a can of coke that phosphoric acid is required as an additive (to suppress the natural gag reflex) to increase market penetration 3% in the 4th quarter, then wouldn't the board at such a NGO have an obligation to their shareholders to deliver that growth?
Especially given that children and adolescents become lifelong customers, wouldn't such a board in fact have a fiduciary responsibility to target such demographics broadly with ever-sweeter processed foodstuffs and beverages? It's not the board's fault humans under the age of 25 generally don't have a fully developed pre-frontal cortex that could resist extraneous activations of the ventral tegmental area. It's just good business sense—if not us then someone else would clearly profit.
Or maybe we could tax the externalities, dunno. It seems your argument is no government could capture every single externality at any one given point in time and thus the effort is moot. We should just pick up the tab on our strained healthcare systems and add more motorized shopping carts at Walmart, and heck maybe we'll even get those cool floating chairs from Wall-E if Buy N Large can finally circumvent silly legalisms and deliver to the American public a sugar so concentrated you can skin-pop it.
Most of the differences in what you write is the "externalities" affect others.
Yes the "burden on healthcare" is framed as an externality too, but that's after one has accepted the collectivism of health. The problem with that is where does it end? How can you argue for a sugar tax but also argue against a skiing tax to dissuade people from partaking in that dangerous activity? On the other hand I can say why sugar drinks should not be taxed but people should have to get a license to drive on government roads without being inconsistent.
Sugar beverages isn't the only thing that causes food addiction, obesity, or diabetes either mind you. Why not get down to the brass tacks of it and implement calorie cards for people and tax or ban over-eating? And tax people by their body weight too.
Your argument would be more convincing if sugar tax had not already been successfully implemented in my country. We have an obesity problem, not a skiing problem. And a lot of people were unknowingly intaking hundreds of empty calories from soda for basically no reason.
> Your argument would be more convincing if sugar tax had not already been successfully implemented in my country.
What's your definition of success? I never argued a sugar tax could not reduce consumption of sugar if that is what it is. Just like an obesity tax could incentivize people to lose weight.
> We have an obesity problem,
Did your sugar tax fix the obesity problem?
> not a skiing problem.
Skiing is a statistically dangerous recreation and causes costly injury and death, healthcare system would be better off without it, so why not strive to also eliminate it? I didn't say it's the same magnitude as obesity but multiple problems can be addressed at once.
> And a lot of people were unknowingly intaking hundreds of empty calories from soda for basically no reason.
You must tell me what country this is which does not have the most basic food labeling standards yet has made significant progress in their obesity problem!
Raw sugar? Highly controlled? Or permissible in batters for the express purpose of creating cake or cake-like solids? I feel that frosting could create a dangerous loophole here where it would be easy to manufacture under the guise of legitimate bakery desserts but would be just a simple step for a backyard chemist to transform into a dangerous _sugary drink_. A popsicle is even worse! Power goes out on your freezer and all of a sudden IRS agents are kicking down your door. No, that's just too dangerous. Best to tax all sugar, solid and liquid.
People may accuse us of going overboard but really we're perfectly justified in taxing people's choices where they have a societal cost e.g., on the healthcare system. Participation in dangerous sports naturally will be taxed next. Sunbathing certainly, but also getting too little sun. Not eating enough fiber should be taxed right out of existence. Sitting down too much we need to eliminate. Flying or driving anywhere for non-essential or recreational purposes is right out. Not having enough friends can impact mental health, so if you can't provide documented evidence of having at least 10 friends your income tax should be raised by a % for each. Recreational boating and swimming outdoors are statistically quite dangerous, we could just ban those completely, nobody _needs_ to drive a boat or jetski around.
I'm starting to have visions of the utopia...