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Thread: Sin Taxes: Pro or Con

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    Elen síla lumenn' omentielvo What Exit?'s avatar
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    Default Sin Taxes: Pro or Con

    This arose from a bit of chat with Sarahfeena. She reported that Santa Clara County in CA has banned toys in Happy Meals for anti-fat reasons. This brought up a bit of soap boxing by me on Sin Taxes.

    To me the reason we tax Cigarettes, Alcohol and Gas now is that they are easy to tax, the government can half-sell it as encouraging people to quit or reduce and most importantly they are major streams of tax money that are at least semi-voluntary.

    Now I would extend this to a sugar/fat tax against sugary drinks, most fast food items, prepared junk food and etc. A fairly simple fat/calorie formula would have to be derived to do this.

    I am also in favor of legalizing most or all drugs and taxing them heavy; at least as heavy as cigs and liquor. I am a big supporter of UHC and all these various sin taxes should help to pay for it. The bonus of the drug legalization is to seriously reduce the warehousing of young prisoners and turning them into long term criminals. The savings there would be huge. The prison money saved alone could probably pay for the additional rehabs we should have. It would also free up law enforcement for real crimes. (Or heaven forbid allow for slow reduction.)

    Now to those that might say, “But fast food is not addicting”, I say bull. McDonald’s French Fries are pretty addicting to fat people or for many Colas are very addicting. I am a fat person, I find drinking beer in moderation very easy. I gave up drugs with great ease when I chose to. Giving up fatty foods and etc. NOT EASY. To me it is the same thing. Bad Food, Cigarettes, Alcohol and Drugs all general lead to cost to the states and government in medical care. So a sin tax is as appropriate for fast food and the like as it is for our current items.

    Jim (I am a very odd mix of Liberal minded fiscal conservative.)

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    Free Exy Cluricaun's avatar
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    I don't care for the term, per se, but I encourage taking the black market that would/does exist and making that income beneficial to everyone through taxing as long as it's not insane. I love me some Jack Daniels, but I would love it less if it cost $200 a bottle. If a good balance between income needed and appropriate tax rates can be settled on then I'm in favor of legalization of everything, drugs, prostitution, even re-opening the NFA registry to allow the ownership of fully automatic firearms imported or made after 1986.

    We need money, people want stuff, selling it to them in a safe and sane manner seems obvious especially in light of the fact that often times our legislation against such things eats up so much of our money.
    Hell, if I didn't do things just because they made me feel a bit ridiculous, I wouldn't have much of a social life. - Santo Rugger.

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    Curmudgeon OtakuLoki's avatar
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    The thing that gets me about sin taxes is that they're sold on the basis of "helping people."

    What they're really doing, however, is to shore up the general budget without giving the impression of raising taxes. IMNSHO all a sin tax does is convince the government and the electorate that they can make other people pay for what they want.

    A couple of years ago NY raised the sin taxes on tobacco rather dramatically. The effect of this was to actually decrease the consumption of tobacco by unpredicted amounts. The reaction of the state government? Was it rejoicing that there was a public health benefit for people? No. It was to crack down on every fucking loophole in the tax code in an effort to get that money they expected to get from the dirty smokers.

    Sin taxes are also always sold to be dedicated towards some specific program: gas taxes for road repairs/maintenance, tobacco taxes for Medicaid, Lotteries for education, etc. However the effect is only to take the money already budgeted for those programs, and redistribute it through the rest of the budget - so those specially funded programs get little, if any, increase in funding, and the general fund just gets more money to use on anyone's latest pork or special interest project.

    I hate sin taxes and oppose them, strongly. Even when I am not affected by them.


    ETA: I wouldn't have had any problem with the state trying to close their tobacco tax loopholes if it hadn't been done so obviously because their sin tax was suddenly not bringing in enough cash.
    Last edited by OtakuLoki; 30 Apr 2010 at 01:18 PM.

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    Administrator CatInASuit's avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by What Exit? View post
    Now to those that might say, “But fast food is not addicting”, I say bull. McDonald’s French Fries are pretty addicting to fat people or for many Colas are very addicting. I am a fat person, I find drinking beer in moderation very easy. I gave up drugs with great ease when I chose to. Giving up fatty foods and etc. NOT EASY. To me it is the same thing. Bad Food, Cigarettes, Alcohol and Drugs all general lead to cost to the states and government in medical care. So a sin tax is as appropriate for fast food and the like as it is for our current items.
    So what you want is for them to tax the food you find addictive. How is that going to stop you being addicted to Fast Food? What level of tax would it take before it became too expensive?

    Of course if you are going to tax fatty foods, then what do you do with butter or milk which also contains plenty of fat?

    Nicotine taxes bring in a lot more money than would be saved if everyone gave up. They are just great moneyspinners for governments.
    In the land of the blind, the one-arm man is king.

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    Elen síla lumenn' omentielvo What Exit?'s avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by CatInASuit View post
    So what you want is for them to tax the food you find addictive. How is that going to stop you being addicted to Fast Food? What level of tax would it take before it became too expensive?

    Of course if you are going to tax fatty foods, then what do you do with butter or milk which also contains plenty of fat?

    Nicotine taxes bring in a lot more money than would be saved if everyone gave up. They are just great moneyspinners for governments.
    Absolutely this is all about raising revenue and earmarking it to help pay for health care. I brought up the addiction as I have heard the argument and used myself as a counter-example.

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    Administrator CatInASuit's avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by What Exit? View post
    Absolutely this is all about raising revenue and earmarking it to help pay for health care. I brought up the addiction as I have heard the argument and used myself as a counter-example.
    The NI payments in the UK were originally supposed to pay for the NHS. Now, they just go into the bucket marked government spending.

    Ok, so the next question is what level of tax should be applied to fast food as a sin tax? If it was to be done as a deterrent, what level would stop most American's eating fast food and get them to switch to a healthier diet?
    In the land of the blind, the one-arm man is king.

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    Wanna cuddle? RabbitMage's avatar
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    I'm all for more taxes, and sin tax isn't that big a deal for me. I do not need a soda, and even if my 2 liter has a new, 30% tax levied on it, I'm sure I'll manage somehow.

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    Elen síla lumenn' omentielvo What Exit?'s avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by CatInASuit View post
    The NI payments in the UK were originally supposed to pay for the NHS. Now, they just go into the bucket marked government spending.

    Ok, so the next question is what level of tax should be applied to fast food as a sin tax? If it was to be done as a deterrent, what level would stop most American's eating fast food and get them to switch to a healthier diet?
    Again, I am not saying it is a deterrent to most people, I am just saying it is a new and worthwhile way of raising revenue. It might actually encourage fast food places to put more healthy (and thus not taxed) selections on the menu but I would not count on it.

    To me most sin taxes are on items that cause either health issues or pollution. I believe the sugar/fat tax makes as much sense as the tobacco and liquor taxes.

    Here is a good place to begin if you want to review various state taxes. This page focuses on NJ but has links to all 50 states.
    http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/245.html

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    Oliphaunt The Original An Gadaí's avatar
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    I've never known anyone to quit smoking because smokes got too expensive but people do seem to drink less if it is more costly. We have so much tax and duty on many drinks that even indigenous drinks are way more expensive here than in most other countries. However, we still drink like fishes.

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