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Sugar tax

  • 18-11-2012 8:55pm
    #1
    RandomName2
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,570 ✭✭✭


    James Reilly seems to be a man on a mission to ensure he is not reelected. Now nanny state legislature (such as the proposed ban on smoking in public places) can be combined with Fine Gael attempts to improve the exchequer; enter the sugar tax (Irish Independent, Herald)

    But this is being billed as a health initiative? How so? Because it is going to be targeted at soft drinks.

    ...

    So wait, is the tax going to be exclusively upon fructose, and products containing fructose? If that's the case, get set for some pretty expensive fruit in supermarkets after the budget. Or, if you are going to slap a tax on sugar in general, then pretty much all foodstuffs will go up in price; particularly items such as bread, potatoes, pasta, etc.

    Or will the tax be exclusive to liquid products containing fructose? In which case fruit juice will become prohibitively expensive to buy. Wait, wait - will the tax be exclusive to products that contain carbon dioxide, fructose, and are in liquid form? :D Would that mean, then, that flat Coke would not be eligible for the tax?

    Perhaps this is the way that laws are made in Ireland - make a cock up of the legislation and wait for the lawsuits to sort out the finer details (the 8th Amendment anyone?)


Comments

  • #2
    BlaasForRafa
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,020 ✭✭✭BlaasForRafa


    RandomName2 wrote: »
    James Reilly seems to be a man on a mission to ensure he is not reelected. Now nanny state legislature (such as the proposed ban on smoking in public places) can be combined with Fine Gael attempts to improve the exchequer; enter the sugar tax (Irish Independent, Herald)

    But this is being billed as a health initiative? How so? Because it is going to be targeted at soft drinks.

    ...

    So wait, is the tax going to be exclusively upon fructose, and products containing fructose? If that's the case, get set for some pretty expensive fruit in supermarkets after the budget. Or, if you are going to slap a tax on sugar in general, then pretty much all foodstuffs will go up in price; particularly items such as bread, potatoes, pasta, etc.

    Or will the tax be exclusive to liquid products containing fructose? In which case fruit juice will become prohibitively expensive to buy. Wait, wait - will the tax be exclusive to products that contain carbon dioxide, fructose, and are in liquid form? :D Would that mean, then, that flat Coke would not be eligible for the tax?

    Perhaps this is the way that laws are made in Ireland - make a cock up of the legislation and wait for the lawsuits to sort out the finer details (the 8th Amendment anyone?)

    I thought Coke in Ireland was made from Cane-sugar and not High-Fructose Corn Syrup anyway?


  • #3
    Neewbie_noob
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 543 ✭✭✭Neewbie_noob


    http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=70085866

    here you go OP


  • #4
    RandomName2
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,570 ✭✭✭RandomName2


    Neewbie_noob wrote: »
    http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=70085866

    here you go OP

    Why do I never see these things? :pac:


  • #5
    RandomName2
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,570 ✭✭✭RandomName2


    BlaasForRafa wrote: »
    I thought Coke in Ireland was made from Cane-sugar and not High-Fructose Corn Syrup anyway?

    In the event that this is the case; surely all products containing cane sugar would be taxed in this fashion...


  • #6
    Neewbie_noob
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 543 ✭✭✭Neewbie_noob


    What about Diet Coke or Coke Zero ?? Or will they just bring in a fizzy tax?


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  • #7
    RandomName2
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,570 ✭✭✭RandomName2


    Neewbie_noob wrote: »
    What about Diet Coke or Coke Zero ?? Or will they just bring in a fizzy tax?

    The CO2 Health Tax

    All edible products containing carbon dioxide? :P

    If I remember correctly, most sugary energy drinks aren't fizzy, are they?


  • #8
    Denerick
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 6,488 ✭✭✭Denerick


    I think its going to be a disaster. If its restricted to a few brands like coca cola, fanta etc. you could see the logic but it end up taxing all manner of things that have a large amount of natural sugars, such as pure orange juice etc. Its nanny state bull****, propagated by a miserable and fat government minister who doesn't have any political philosophy whatsoever and doesn't even think about the issue of intervening in people's personal choices.


  • #9
    BlaasForRafa
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,020 ✭✭✭BlaasForRafa


    RandomName2 wrote: »
    In the event that this is the case; surely all products containing cane sugar would be taxed in this fashion...

    Afaik cane-sugar coke contains sucrose rather than fructose and fructose is apparently more fattening than sucrose. Of course, as you implied, they could just put a tax on both fructose and sucrose.


  • #10
    Neewbie_noob
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 543 ✭✭✭Neewbie_noob


    Denerick wrote: »
    I think its going to be a disaster. If its restricted to a few brands like coca cola, fanta etc

    Will these companies have grounds for a lawsuit for being unfairly targeted?? Will a pure bag of damn sugar even be taxed ?? Sounds like a stealth tax tbh. Cigarette taz, carbon tax, petrol tax :rolleyes:


  • #11
    BlaasForRafa
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,020 ✭✭✭BlaasForRafa


    Denerick wrote: »
    I think its going to be a disaster. If its restricted to a few brands like coca cola, fanta etc. you could see the logic but it end up taxing all manner of things that have a large amount of natural sugars, such as pure orange juice etc. Its nanny state bull****, propagated by a miserable and fat government minister who doesn't have any political philosophy whatsoever and doesn't even think about the issue of intervening in people's personal choices.

    Its just a revenue-generating exercise anyway. It'll probably affect poorer people as well since they generally have poorer diets than the well-off.


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  • #12
    Denerick
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 6,488 ✭✭✭Denerick


    BlaasForRafa wrote: »
    Its just a revenue-generating exercise anyway. It'll probably affect poorer people as well since they generally have poorer diets than the well-off.

    To be honest I'm just irritated by the notion of an obese government minister lecturing to others on how to live their lives. Micromanagement, its the curse of our times.


  • #13
    Chuck Stone
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,030 ✭✭✭✭Chuck Stone


    They could start by withdrawing the subsidies for sugar production.
    One of the biggest subsidies was $223 million, given to the French sugar conglomerate Tereos,

    Source

    That would drive the price of sugar up if the EU put an import levy on sugar would it not?


  • #14
    BlaasForRafa
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,020 ✭✭✭BlaasForRafa


    Denerick wrote: »
    To be honest I'm just irritated by the notion of an obese government minister lecturing to others on how to live their lives. Micromanagement, its the curse of our times.

    Sorry you are incorrect there. He is an obese corrupt minister lecturing to others on how to live their lives. Or should it be corrupt obese minister?


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