Hungary to tax unhealthy foods, drinks from September

Bottle_of_Smoke

http://www.bbj.hu/life/hungary-to-tax-unhealthy-foods-drinks-from-september_58486

Hungarians will have to pay extra for salty and sugary processed foods and drinks from September, under draft legislation slated to come before the government on Tuesday, according to media reports on Tuesday.

The legislation proposes to levy a HUF 10-per-liter tax on sugary drinks to be paid by producers from September. The tax would rise to HUF 15 a liter from 2012. Energy drinks will be taxed with HUF 300 per liter. Salty snacks will cost an extra HUF 400 per kilogram. Hungarians will also have to dig deeper in their pockets to buy packaged sweets and ice cream, which will cost HUF 200 and HUF 100 more per kilogram.

The tax is expected to generate HUF 5 billion in revenue in 2011.

Earlier media reports said the government was planning to introduce a "hamburger tax", but the draft legislation contains no levy on hamburgers

Don't know if this will work but glad somewhere's trying it. If successful could easily be implemented elsewhere

dev100

Bottle_of_Smoke wrote: »

http://www.bbj.hu/life/hungary-to-tax-unhealthy-foods-drinks-from-september_58486



Don't know if this will work but glad somewhere's trying it. If successful could easily be implemented elsewhere

God we are done for so.... Its a rarity to get unprocessed foods here

EileenG

I can see this going so bad.

My child's school brought in a "healthy eating" plan. Suddenly everything is low fat and wheat-based. She's celiac, and now the only thing she can eat in the school canteen is chocolate covered rice cakes. Everything else is sandwiches or pasta. Granted, the original menu was heavy on hula hoops and sausage rolls, but there were usually some sort of meat and veg option that was reasonable.

Who is doing to decide what is unhealthy?

Frogdog

I'll echo Eileen's sentiments here.

When I first saw the thread title I immediately thought "Hungarian version of Safefood taxing foods high in fat while promoting a grain based diet". :mad:

Bottle_of_Smoke

Seems they're more going after sugar/salt though

Frogdog

Bottle_of_Smoke wrote: »

Seems they're more going after sugar/salt though

Oh yes, I'm not knocking what they're doing, more power to them in fact. I'm just saying I can imagine what would happen if something similar were to happen here, particularly after what we've seen from Safefood.

El_Dangeroso

I don't see a tax on cream and butter in the offing in this country, the IFA would have a fit.

I think it's a good idea to tax highly processed food. It's one of the few ways to guarantee decreased consumption.

corkcomp

I dont agree with this approach at all. Its too open to personal opinions / agendas as to what is or is not healthy. Even the worse foods are ok in small quantities, especially if someoneis physically active. People should be allowed to make the choice as to what they consume (good or bad), anyway I wonder if the result would be similar to when taxes on cigarettes went up? people are addicted so they found the money somewhere and continued as before.

Bottle_of_Smoke

corkcomp wrote: »

I dont agree with this approach at all. Its too open to personal opinions / agendas as to what is or is not healthy. Even the worse foods are ok in small quantities, especially if someoneis physically active. People should be allowed to make the choice as to what they consume (good or bad), anyway I wonder if the result would be similar to when taxes on cigarettes went up? people are addicted so they found the money somewhere and continued as before.

I was of the same opinion but I'm coming around to the idea due to the epic levels of obesity in european, and particularly British/Irish society.

I also have concerns about smoking. Though perhaps the reasons that didn't work as well as it could is due to counterfeit cigarettes, I doubt there would be an opportunity for that with food.

All in all I'm glad its not my country experimenting with this project, but hope the results are good

rolion

"The tax is expected to generate HUF 5 billion in revenue in 2011." ... another tax on people at the end of the year !

Gilda Fortune

Do people honestly think that this isnt a form of facist dictatorship..
surely people should be allowed eat what they want. we shouldnt be able to tell the next man what they should and shouldnt eat.

Bottle_of_Smoke

Gilda Fortune wrote: »

Do people honestly think that this isnt a form of facist dictatorship..
surely people should be allowed eat what they want. we shouldnt be able to tell the next man what they should and shouldnt eat.

In a way yes. Though the consequences of not interfering with people's food choices is them needing expensive healthcare and surgery.

Now if we were to tell them to get lost and pay for their own self inflicted medical bills, we'd be called fascists too.

El_Dangeroso

corkcomp wrote: »

I dont agree with this approach at all. Its too open to personal opinions / agendas as to what is or is not healthy. Even the worse foods are ok in small quantities, especially if someoneis physically active. People should be allowed to make the choice as to what they consume (good or bad), anyway I wonder if the result would be similar to when taxes on cigarettes went up? people are addicted so they found the money somewhere and continued as before.

I'm having trouble marrying this with your opinions on raw milk corkcomp.

The thing is taxes on cigarettes did cut consumption, massively. Compared to 20 years ago smoking rates are way down. Economists take as a certain fact that when tax goes up, consumption goes down. Some people will carry on as normal, but most will readjust consumption in the face of price increase. Why do you think food lobbyists spend millions each year in the US to make sure this doesn't happen?

These taxes are not aimed at the occasional consumer, they are aimed at the habitual consumer who really would do better to cut down. Occasional consumption probably won't even be affected.

As regards agendas of what is and isn't healthy, find me one person who thinks fizzy drinks and junk food are healthy.

I used to be all libertarian about this stuff before I realised that a generation of children's health is at stake and not everyone cares as much about minding what they eat as the people on this forum.

Gilda Fortune

I would only support such a tax if every penny from it went to the third world to feed starving men , women and children. It disgusts me that half the world is overfed and the other half babies starve to death. so bring on the facist tax but put it to proper good use.

Bottle_of_Smoke

Gilda Fortune wrote: »

I would only support such a tax if every penny from it went to the third world to feed starving men , women and children. It disgusts me that half the world is overfed and the other half babies starve to death. so bring on the facist tax but put it to proper good use.

That's just not going to happen. We live in a capitalist world. People starving in other countries is awful, but it really has no bearing on how we try to change the health of our nation.

Furthermore the causes of starvation aren't usually down to a lack of food. The countries affected often produce enough food to feed their entire nation but due to corrupt government it gets sold off to line their own pockets. They'd do the same with any taxes we sent them.

opinion guy

EileenG wrote: »

I can see this going so bad.

My child's school brought in a "healthy eating" plan. Suddenly everything is low fat and wheat-based. She's celiac, and now the only thing she can eat in the school canteen is chocolate covered rice cakes. Everything else is sandwiches or pasta. Granted, the original menu was heavy on hula hoops and sausage rolls, but there were usually some sort of meat and veg option that was reasonable.

Who is doing to decide what is unhealthy?

I think this is a false analogy. There are things out there like transfats and high fructose corn syrup that are bad for everyone.
No one is suggesting putting a tax on fruit, meat or vegetables here. Just because your childs school has a **** 'healthy eating' plan - that bears no relation to taxing things like transfats or HFCS

opinion guy

Gilda Fortune wrote: »

Do people honestly think that this isnt a form of facist dictatorship..
surely people should be allowed eat what they want. we shouldnt be able to tell the next man what they should and shouldnt eat.

Do you not realise that what you are allowed eat has already been dictated to you ? Much of modern agriculture and food economics - i.e. what food choices we all have, is dictated by some very shady financial deals made back in the 70's. The food market has been manipulated for years at the level of ingredients to make certain very unhealthy but easy to produce food - cheap to make and sell. Were it not for these dodgy dealings what we all would be eating now would be totally different.

For what its worth I think this should be done by taxing food ingredients as opposed to end products. In other words - if something has transfat in it 10% goes on the consumer price. At the same time - you need to hit up the manufacturers so that not all the tax is paid by consumer - therefore you tax the manufactueres a certain amount for every ton of HFCS or transfat they produce.

That way you disincentivise people from eating crap, and you disincentivise manufactuerers from producing crap

corkcomp

IMO people are missing the point here.. I may be proven wrong but im pretty certain that taxing convenience and so called "unhealthy" foods would do nthing to reduce obesity in this country, I wont go into any great detail on why I think that except to say that obesity is brought on by a number of lifestyle factors.

El_Dangeroso

Except that every other time tax has gone up on a product, consumption goes down. Or we can go down the 'it's everyone's responsibility to reduce consumption themselves' route like the US did. Didn't work out so good for them.

I wonder what the smoking rates would be like now if we'd eschewed taxes and smoking bans in favour of personal responsibility.

Edited to say: I don't think this is some kind of magic bullet. But if it avoids people choosing cheap processed crap because it's tasty and it's cheap then it's going to help.

Sangre

I think this is akin to closing the door after the horse has bolted. People need proper education on health, fitness and nutrition from a very early age. A class of this nature should be mandatory through-out school, with particular emphasis starting in secondary school. Of course, like anything, this can only be as good as its implementers. Ireland and its representative bodies need to really re-evaluate what they classify as healthy.

EileenG

opinion guy wrote: »

I think this is a false analogy. There are things out there like transfats and high fructose corn syrup that are bad for everyone.
No one is suggesting putting a tax on fruit, meat or vegetables here. Just because your childs school has a **** 'healthy eating' plan - that bears no relation to taxing things like transfats or HFCS

My point is that what is taxed is going to be based on what is fashion rather than science. I'm willing to bet that it won't be based on transfats or HFCS, it will be based on grams of fat. So oily fish and raw nuts and eggs will suddenly be in the firing line, while low fat crisps and MSG flavoured rice cakes will be fine.

The food industry is going to put its spoke in, and will lobby for low fat foods to be excluded, even if they are processed crap.

corkcomp

EileenG wrote: »

So oily fish and raw nuts and eggs will suddenly be in the firing line.

I bet that wont really happen. I see the point your trying to make but they wont tax whole foods because they have a high fat content.

EileenG

Bet they will target high fat food, without asking too many questions.

tonsiltickler

While I dont neccessarily agree with this, it's a start. I would much rather see the food processing indutry heavily regulated. the amount of crap thats available to buy in supermarkets is ever increasing with cheaper and worse ingredients than ever before.

I dont see a reason for a similar law not to be passed where the tax on vegatables, fruit and free range meat etc... is reduced significantly

Alopex

EileenG's fears coming true in Denmark. The fools are actually going to tax saturated fat, and therefore unprocessed meat, butter, god help coconut oil.

Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen's centre-right administration plans to bring in the levy in October despite widespread opposition from Denmark's food industry.

The tax applies to meats, including chicken and pork, cheese, butter, edible vegetable oil, margarine and other foods such as potato-based snacks. The tax, imposed on domestic and imported food, is levied on the weight of saturated fat contained in these foods, and charged at the rate of DKK13.50 per kg of saturated fat.

http://www.just-food.com/analysis/denmarks-saturated-fat-tax-provokes-industry-anger_id115300.aspx

Am new to this site, however I am a primal eater. I think we need to get ourselves organised for protests in case some genius in Leinster House decides this would be a good idea.

Fortunately the IFA would be dead set against this and are a powerful group.

El_Dangeroso

Alopex wrote: »

EileenG's fears coming true in Denmark. The fools are actually going to tax saturated fat, and therefore unprocessed meat, butter, god help coconut oil.

http://www.just-food.com/analysis/denmarks-saturated-fat-tax-provokes-industry-anger_id115300.aspx

Am new to this site, however I am a primal eater. I think we need to get ourselves organised for protests in case some genius in Leinster House decides this would be a good idea.

Fortunately the IFA would be dead set against this and are a powerful group.

How is this even workable? Beef and pork can vary wildly in sat fat content. Are they going to pay for expensive testing of every single batch of meat?

Tenner says it will never happen.

nice_guy80

you might as well put a tax on stupidity as a tax on unhealthy foods.
people will still buy them

Sangre

nice_guy80 wrote: »

you might as well put a tax on stupidity as a tax on unhealthy foods.
people will still buy them

Its called the lottery.

amacachi

Why not just cut subsidies rather than paying people to grow crap (whenever they do start taxing the "right" thing) food and then charging people for buying it, or would that just be too simple.

elliekboo

I think the tax is worth a try at least. I know that personally myself and a lot of my friends would buy a lot of those foods mostly because the healthier options are too expensive. If they raise the tax on salted/sugary foods ad ready meals then the healthier options should come down a bit.

El_Dangeroso

nice_guy80 wrote: »

you might as well put a tax on stupidity as a tax on unhealthy foods.
people will still buy them

So you're saying all fat people who got that way eating unhealthy foods are stupid?

EileenG

But I suspect that they won't tax sugary/salty food, they'll tax food with a high fat content, regardless of how nutritious it is, and encourage low fat muck instead.

Mellor

EileenG wrote: »

But I suspect that they won't tax sugary/salty food, they'll tax food with a high fat content, regardless of how nutritious it is, and encourage low fat muck instead.

Eileen did you miss the post above that detailed what Hungary were taxing? It was nothing to do with fat.
It was sugary drinks (although the rate of tax was meaningless), energy drinks, salty snacks and sweets.

They're all pretty clearly defined and even fat free jelly babies are going to fall int othe category for sweets.


Denmark however, just messed up completely