Article from The Washington Free Beacon by Elizabeth Harrington.
Soda taxes disproportionately affect lower income Americans, according to a new study released by the Tax Foundation.
Taxes levied per ounce on sugary drinks by Democrats in Berkeley, Philadelphia, and Seattle are even more regressive, according to the study. The middle class would pay the most if Congress passed a nationwide soda tax, as two-thirds of its revenue would come from those earning between $20,000 and $100,000.
If an excise tax per fluid ounces were to be enacted, households earning less than $100,000 would pay 78 percent of the tax.
“Sugar-sweetened beverage taxes theoretically offer the potential for reducing externality health-care costs stemming from excessive sugar consumption, and in this way they may raise the prospect of efficiency gains by signaling to consumers these higher social costs,” according to the study. “However, these taxes also raise equity concerns to the extent these goods represent a disproportionate share of the consumption among lower-income households.”
Read the entire article at The Washington Free Beacon.
Image Credit:Â By Marlith [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], from Wikimedia Commons
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Shouldn’t booze be treble taxed then? Taxes don’t work, bans either.
Ban cars and the people will burn off those extra calories! Every time government tries to fix something that we as people do to ourselves they screw it up! Booze,drugs,or tobacco and overeating. Can’t wait for the circus to begin.
What hurts the poor, and the rich, is soda.
As usual democrats hurt the poor.
Lets have a large tax on stupidity. This tax can and will hurt a lot of people. Mostly politicians. Depending on size and scope of tax, Maxine Waters, Bernie Sanders, Adam Schiff, etc., could generate billions in new tax revenue. And the beat goes on.
Great Post ?