Disagree:
Mark Mustio Republican member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives
We’re seeing that those places where families buy their food and groceries are starting to lose money, and we don’t want them to close.
Jacob Rees-Mogg British politician
The tax system is not there to tell us how to live our lives.
Paul Polman CEO, Unilever
In essence, there is nothing wrong with [sugar], it depends on how your diet is. In some products it makes more sense, in others not. I personally am very mindful of my sugar intake. But I don’t need a tax for that, nor do poor people need a tax for that. Poor people need to be helped not being poor, that’s probably a bigger thing than anything else.
Adam Smith Institute ASI is UK’s leading neoliberal think tank. See: @EamonnButler @Sam_Dumitriu @philip_salter @Da
The sugar tax means smaller bottles, higher prices and worse tasting recipes. What did you expect would happen?!
Tax Foundation Sound Tax Policy since 1937. Subscribe to updates here: https://t.co/8A1bVcQF8a
Our research has generally concluded that soda taxes are narrow, punitive taxes that are a budget risk not likely to solve America’s health issues. They’re a misguided attempt at solving a multifaceted health problem and will introduce many unintended fiscal consequences.
Institute of Economic Affairs The Institute of Economic Affairs is the UK's original free-market think-tank, founded in 1955
Early evidence casts serious doubt on whether sugary drink taxes have ‘progressive’ health benefits either. Low-income consumers do not seem to have particularly elastic demand for sugary drinks. Even if they enjoyed disproportionate health gains from sin taxes, they would still suffer a net loss to their welfare and the tax would remain regressive in the traditional sense.
Christopher Snowdon 'The IEA's abrasive director of lifestyle economics' (Private Eye). Spectator Health. Tweeting
[People are] quite unresponsive to price hikes and do not significantly change their habits.
Sam Bowman I'm a liberal. I'm interested in economics, technology and food. I used to run @ASI and I inve
A tax on sugary soft drinks is the first step on the road to fat taxes and sugar taxes more generally. It makes little sense to tax sugary drinks on their own, rather than sugar more generally – a couple of Mars bars are just as bad as a bottle of Coke – but the Chancellor probably reckons that the public won’t care if he only targets soft drinks. Once the tax is in place, he will follow the lead ... See More
Mark Littlewood Director General of the Institute for Economic Affairs
A tax on fizzy drinks seems more likely to provoke a public backlash than many other taxes on unhealthy products. Smokers and drinkers have been become inured to high levies on their lifestyle choices. By contrast, a large bottle of pop is a standard part of an average family’s shopping and, if consumed sensibly, has no measurable health impacts. Allowing your kids a glass of cola with their lunch... See More
Food and Drink Federation We're Food and Drink Federation (FDF), the voice of the UK food and drink industry. See @TimRy
FDF opposes the soft drinks industry levy as we believe it is wrong in principle to single out individual nutrients or product categories for punitive treatment.
Will Quince MP Conservative MP for Colchester
[The UK sugar tax] will hit Consumers: The tax is designed to be levied on soft drinks companies, based on the volume of sugar-sweetened drinks they import of export. But the independent economic forecaster, the Office of Budgetary Responsibility, states the costs of the levy will be ‘passed entirely onto the price paid by consumers’. That means it will be the public, not soft drinks companies tha... See More
Competitive Enterprise Institute Non-profit libertarian think tank
Soda Taxes: a Failed Experiment that Needs to End. Sin taxes are a blunt instrument that have unpredictable effects on consumer behavior, as well as unintended consequences. The poorest in our communities often bear the financial brunt of these regressive taxes, which are ineffective at combating obesity. 4 Despite the best intentions of public health advocates pushing for a soda tax, the real-wor... See More
