Taxes: Soda
The Soda Tax is considered one of the “Sin taxes,” which are levied on activities or products that are considered socially undesirable. Other common targets include alcohol and tobacco. Sin taxes are often meant to act both as a disincentive for specific behaviors and as a means to generate public revenue. For example, cigarette taxes are intended to help people quit smoking and taxes on soft drinks to reduce obesity. Revenues are sometimes targeted at health and social programs that ease the problems created by the use of the product.
Commentary
Cry Wolf Quotes
If someone can explain to me the rhyme or reason for saddling soft drinks with the cost of building prisons and tapping the phones of imprisoned drug offenders, I would like to hear it.
We just feel that it is really an unnecessary tax. There may have been some problems in Medicaid, but we point to the large amounts of fraud.
This is a huge, huge loophole. If they could raise one (food tax), they could raise another one.
Citizens against Unfair Taxes, or CUT, has held protests in several Northeast Arkansas stores during the past two weeks, handing out literature that says the tax would go into the ‘black hole of government spending.’
Related Laws and Rules
Resources
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) is a think tank focused on tax and fiscal policy. They provide in-depth analysis of state issues.
Citizens for Tax Justice is an organization that represents low and middle income citizens in the tax debates on Capitol Hill.
The Center for Science in the Public Interest, since 1971, has been a leading advocate for nutrition and health, food safety, alchohol policy, and sound science.
