Yes ! Tax Sugar.

Xenophile

Yes introduce a sugar tax.
If and when we start growing sugar beet again. Tax the yields.

Sticky_Fingers

Xenophile wrote: »

Yes introduce a sugar tax.
If and when we start growing sugar beet again. Tax the yields.

So you want to introduce a tax on the off chance that a dead indigenous industry will somehow rise from the ashes and save us all

Xenophile

At least it will be a start

Mumha

Xenophile wrote: »

Yes introduce a sugar tax.
If and when we start growing sugar beet again. Tax the yields.

Considering the timebomb that is diabetes, causing heart disease and related illnesses, the suggestion of supporting a sugar beet industry is akin to the government supporting cigarette factories.

We have an opportunity now to address this scourge. 60 years ago people weren't properly aware of the hazards of smoking, likewise with sugar. We know now, and there is no excuse anymore. Taxing sugar is an entirely logical idea, if not for our sake, then for the sake of our kids.

Cookie_Monster

Mumha wrote: »

Taxing sugar is an entirely logical idea, if not for our sake, then for the sake of our kids.

why?

Can you outline any benefits with some backup rather than just rant that "sugar = bad".

Also if you did tax it it would only be replaced with artificial sweeteners, why bother? I doubt these are in any way better than a natural product...
Look at the states for instance, corn syrup is favoured over sugar (due to industry power), simple replacement

Sugar is naturally occurring in fruits and veg too, so do we tax them also?

touts

If the tax was to be ringfenced for health then there might be some small justification for it. However it will just go straight into the general taxation pool and be used to repay our bank reparations. It's just another money grab by the government.

al28283

What will it achieve? They taxed sugar in the USA, and just replaced it with cornsyrup and flavourings. Now all their stuff tastes like crap but it hasn't stopped them eating it by the bucketload.

joseph brand

Mumha wrote: »

Considering the timebomb that is diabetes, causing heart disease and related illnesses, the suggestion of supporting a sugar beet industry is akin to the government supporting cigarette factories.

We have an opportunity now to address this scourge. 60 years ago people weren't properly aware of the hazards of smoking, likewise with sugar. We know now, and there is no excuse anymore. Taxing sugar is an entirely logical idea, if not for our sake, then for the sake of our kids.

You obviously don't know the damage corn syrup is doing in the USA. It's in all their soft drinks.

Also, sweeteners aren't all innocent in regards to health. Raw un-refined sugar is fine.

Wertz

Surely taxing air but make much more sense...not much avoiding that.

BTW why would a now defunct (although at time of closing perfectly viable) domestic sugar business start back up if we introduce a levy on their output? If anything it would discourage such a resurrection.
I'm sick of this "sugar is white death" attitude we get these days...it's a basic food product and is also a a potential source of bio-ethanol which could be used in public transport solutions here in the future.

More revenue raising barely disguised as health concern, just like the proposals on minimum price alcohol.

RichardAnd

Mumha wrote: »

Considering the timebomb that is diabetes, causing heart disease and related illnesses, the suggestion of supporting a sugar beet industry is akin to the government supporting cigarette factories.

We have an opportunity now to address this scourge. 60 years ago people weren't properly aware of the hazards of smoking, likewise with sugar. We know now, and there is no excuse anymore. Taxing sugar is an entirely logical idea, if not for our sake, then for the sake of our kids.

Fags and booze aren't taxed to put people off buying them, don't believe the mantra. If the government really wanted people off their vices, they'd make a pack of smokes cost 200 euro. The tax levels as they are are just a way of generating revenue from addictions.

RichardAnd

Just another point about sugar that I think I should raise. Refined sugar is bad for you, yes but only when it's eaten in large quantities and that's true for virtually all food stuffs. Some people try to regulate what they see as "dangerous" food such as sugars, fried food and the like but what these guys don't get is the issue of personable responsibility.

I for one wouldn't touch anything that comes out of McDonald's but if I don't think that their products should be subject to any sort of tax under the guise of preventing people from eating them. These products are available and the responsibility is on the person to choose what is right for them and what is not. Apples, for example, contain trace amounts of cyanide, should we slap a tax on them aswell?

Mumha

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

why?

Can you outline any benefits with some backup rather than just rant that "sugar = bad".

Also if you did tax it it would only be replaced with artificial sweeteners, why bother? I doubt these are in any way better than a natural product...
Look at the states for instance, corn syrup is favoured over sugar (due to industry power), simple replacement

Sugar is naturally occurring in fruits and veg too, so do we tax them also?

Ah, I hadn't realised you needed your hand held.

Firstly, there are enough studies out there (unfortunately mostly in the US, Europe is well behind in this and food labelling in general) showing the longer time effects of diets featuring a high intake of refined carbs like sugar, including the rise in triglyceride levels & blood pressure, and the lowering of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels, which would be expected to increase the risk of coronary heart disease.

Secondly, because of the high glycemic load of sugar-sweetened beverages, consumption of these beverages would be expected to hugely increase the risk of diabetes by causing insulin resistance. The onset of late onset diabetes amongst Adults is reaching epedemic proportions. Our bodies are incapable of processing this amount of sugar over the long term. People are getting Type II diabetes at an increasingly younger age. Where your parent might have become diabetic at 70, their children are becoming diabetic in their 30s/40s.

Thirdly, those studies also show the benefits of reducing the amount of refined carbs from your diet, from a weight gain point of view.

Fourthly, there are clear concerns on the behavoural effects of high levels of sugar on especially, kids. I'm sure we've all seen the behavoural differences in kids having injested sweets and sugared drinks.

100 years ago, the average intake of sugar was about 10 pounds a year and now (again US figures) it's up to over 152 pounds a year.

As we have seen with taxes on smoking, it does have an effect on the numbers smoking. The fewer people eating unhealthy food, will see a decrease in the numbers becoming diabetic, which will be a huge saving for the Health System. It will also see a drop in those developing Coronary heart disease, which again saves on health costs. Naturally, it will increase the amount of money going into the State's coffers. We need state intervention in this because you cannot leave this to manufacturers to regulate themselves. As we've seen in other areas, when it comes to profit, self regulation doesn't work.

The obvious way forward is to set a maximum percentage of sugar that can be included in a product, and make that tax free. Anything above that would be taxed. Of course you wouldn't tax fruit, BUT I would certainly look at taxing juice drinks.

Naturally, all other sweetners like High Fructose corn syrup would be included in this. I think artificial sweetners should be excluded for the medium term but that be reviewed as more studies are done on them. There are natural sweetners like Stevia that could be developed.

Overall, at a time when money needs to be raised, this would have the positive effect of raising taxes and helping making ourselves and our kids healthier. It's a win-win.

bbam

RichardAnd wrote: »

Just another point about sugar that I think I should raise. Refined sugar is bad for you, yes but only when it's eaten in large quantities and that's true for virtually all food stuffs. Some people try to regulate what they see as "dangerous" food such as sugars, fried food and the like but what these guys don't get is the issue of personable responsibility.

I for one wouldn't touch anything that comes out of McDonald's but if I don't think that their products should be subject to any sort of tax under the guise of preventing people from eating them. These products are available and the responsibility is on the person to choose what is right for them and what is not. Apples, for example, contain trace amounts of cyanide, should we slap a tax on them aswell?

But it is documented that ill educated parents , (often from but not soley in the lower socio economic groups) often don't heed warnings and choose poor parenting rather than saying no to kids looking for junk food...
Adding a tax will push these things more out of their afordability and take in some revenue to treat their overweight diabetic kids down the line..

We're sticking our heads in the sand if we don't recognise that there are kids out there being fed a diet of Cola, Crisps Chips and mars bars while their parents drink and smoke themselves stupid..

They are against the "system" so don't heed government warnings, "Billy is just chubby, he'll grow out of it" when the truth is that billy is being fed crap and by 25 will need the firebrigade and a forktruck to get out of the house because he's a half ton weight..

Some facts so this isn't just a mad rant :rolleyes:
Obesity in kids is exploding here and in most western countries..
http://www.ihf.ie/news/foodforkids/obesity.htm

The Facts: Obesity in Ireland

300,000 Irish Children are Obese.

This number increases by 10,000 annually.

1 in 5 Irish children are obese.

The World Health Organization (WHO 1998) report shows that the prevalence of both adult and childhood obesity has reached epidemic proportions worldwide.

11.6% and 13% of all Irish girls and 10.5% and 9.2% (5-12 years) of boys* are either overweight or obese.

Tax crap foods and people will buy less...
The important factor is who decides what gets taxed, not the idiots in power, it needs to be professionals with no vested interest..

cojomo2

The government are considering taxing fat/sugary foods, for health reasons they say. If this is the case (yeah,right), I assume they will be using this fat tax to subsidise healthy foods, which are generally a lot more expensive...any one see that happening!??

Zamboni

Mumha wrote: »

Ah, I hadn't realised you needed your hand held.

Firstly, there are enough studies out there (unfortunately mostly in the US, Europe is well behind in this and food labelling in general) showing the longer time effects of diets featuring a high intake of refined carbs like sugar, including the rise in triglyceride levels & blood pressure, and the lowering of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels, which would be expected to increase the risk of coronary heart disease.

Secondly, because of the high glycemic load of sugar-sweetened beverages, consumption of these beverages would be expected to hugely increase the risk of diabetes by causing insulin resistance. The onset of late onset diabetes amongst Adults is reaching epedemic proportions. Our bodies are incapable of processing this amount of sugar over the long term. People are getting Type II diabetes at an increasingly younger age. Where your parent might have become diabetic at 70, their children are becoming diabetic in their 30s/40s.

Thirdly, those studies also show the benefits of reducing the amount of refined carbs from your diet, from a weight gain point of view.

Fourthly, there are clear concerns on the behavoural effects of high levels of sugar on especially, kids. I'm sure we've all seen the behavoural differences in kids having injested sweets and sugared drinks.

100 years ago, the average intake of sugar was about 10 pounds a year and now (again US figures) it's up to over 152 pounds a year.

As we have seen with taxes on smoking, it does have an effect on the numbers smoking. The fewer people eating unhealthy food, will see a decrease in the numbers becoming diabetic, which will be a huge saving for the Health System. It will also see a drop in those developing Coronary heart disease, which again saves on health costs. Naturally, it will increase the amount of money going into the State's coffers. We need state intervention in this because you cannot leave this to manufacturers to regulate themselves. As we've seen in other areas, when it comes to profit, self regulation doesn't work.

The obvious way forward is to set a maximum percentage of sugar that can be included in a product, and make that tax free. Anything above that would be taxed. Of course you wouldn't tax fruit, BUT I would certainly look at taxing juice drinks.

Naturally, all other sweetners like High Fructose corn syrup would be included in this. I think artificial sweetners should be excluded for the medium term but that be reviewed as more studies are done on them. There are natural sweetners like Stevia that could be developed.

Overall, at a time when money needs to be raised, this would have the positive effect of raising taxes and helping making ourselves and our kids healthier. It's a win-win.

Sugars are not inheritantly bad for you and we already pay taxes for this product in the form of VAT.
If we are going to tax calories, at the very least pick out the genuine bad boys like hydrogenated fats and single them for taxation/levies.

Zamboni

cojomo2 wrote: »

The government are considering taxing fat/sugary foods, for health reasons they say. If this is the case (yeah,right), I assume they will be using this fat tax to subsidise healthy foods, which are generally a lot more expensive...any one see that happening!??

The Government would be utterly retarded to tax fat.
Waht about oily fish, nuts and items like avacodo's?
My bulk would costs a fortune :eek:

Mumha

joseph brand wrote: »

You obviously don't know the damage corn syrup is doing in the USA. It's in all their soft drinks.

Also, sweeteners aren't all innocent in regards to health. Raw un-refined sugar is fine.

No, Raw unrefined sugars aren't fine, and yes i know the damage High Fructose Corn Syrup is doing (I would include them as well, along with any other variant they come up with to try to get around this).

Tora Bora

Saw some dickhead on TV, the other night justifying a tax on sugar, because too many of our kids are overweight / obese.

They are obese, because the do sweet f**k all exercise, other than playing with a computer:(

A lady cam on one of the other forums a few days ago, looking for advise on which iPad to buy for her nine year old.
Apparently mammy and daddy were really stressed out tyring to figure out what to buy the little dear for christmas, as he already had X box, and all the other must have computer games:pac::pac:

FFS!!! We need a proper recession, to sort out this obesity problem once and for all;)

Mumha

RichardAnd wrote: »

Just another point about sugar that I think I should raise. Refined sugar is bad for you, yes but only when it's eaten in large quantities and that's true for virtually all food stuffs. Some people try to regulate what they see as "dangerous" food such as sugars, fried food and the like but what these guys don't get is the issue of personable responsibility.

I for one wouldn't touch anything that comes out of McDonald's but if I don't think that their products should be subject to any sort of tax under the guise of preventing people from eating them. These products are available and the responsibility is on the person to choose what is right for them and what is not. Apples, for example, contain trace amounts of cyanide, should we slap a tax on them aswell?

As I said in a previous post, 100 years ago, the average intake of sugar was 10 pounds a year, while it is now over 150 pounds. It's too easy for people to eat McDonalds/Junk food crap. One of other the issues I would concerned about is the sales of these High energy sports drinks to kids. Right from the start we encouraged our child to drink water rather than "juice", if he's thirsty.

Mumha

Zamboni wrote: »

The Government would be utterly retarded to tax fat.
Waht about oily fish, nuts and items like avacodo's?
My bulk would costs a fortune :eek:

No, that's the popular misunderstanding. There are good fats (like your oily fish etc) and bad fats (like highly processed vegetable oils and trans fats).

As a society, we are eating an awful lot more carbohydrates than fat, but not taking enough exercise to use up those carbs. When we don't use them up, they are stored as body fat.

I came across this good explanation of Carb-fat issue :

"Carbohydrates are an essential part of our diet, along with protein, fat, and water. Carbohydrates, in the form of bread, cereal, rice, pasta, and other grain products, should also make up the bulk of the diet (after all, it is the base of the Food Guide Pyramid). In addition, some carbohydrates are available in a variety of other foods, including fruits, vegetables, potatoes, legumes, nuts, soy, dairy products, sugars, and sweeteners.

Our diets need to contain more complex, rather than simple, carbohydrates, because they could help reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, colon cancer, diabetes mellitus, and gastrointestinal (GI) disorders.

Simple carbohydrates, such as glucose; fructose; galactose; sucrose; lactose; and, maltose, are monosaccharides and disaccharides, which are sugars containing one or two bonds and/or rings.

Complex carbohydrates, such as starch; the fibers; and, glycogen, are polysaccharides, which are sugars containing more than two bonds.

Of all of the carbohydrates available in food, fiber holds the most potential value. According to the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in Bethesda, Maryland, 25 - 35 grams (g), or 10 - 13 g/1000 calories, of daily dietary fiber intake is recommended. It is important to eat a diet rich in fiber because it helps you consume fewer calories from fat, and also helps regulate your bowel movements. Build up your fiber intake gradually in order to help your body's gastrointestinal (GI) system to adjust to the added bulk, and drink plenty of water while on a high fiber diet as well. "

Zamboni

Mumha wrote: »

No, that's the popular misunderstanding. There are good fats (like your oily fish etc) and bad fats (like highly processed vegetable oils and trans fats).

I am saying it would be retarded to simply tax fat (or saturated fat) without distinguishing between the various good and bad elements.
I don't think taxing any type of calorie would be smart unless it is proven to be harmful to humans like a transfat.
It is wrong to tax calories as they are fundamentally important for our survival, when it is really the behaviour of specific consumer that needs to addressed.
It's like charging everybody higher air tickets to cover the cost of installing specialised fat seats for obese clients.:)

PS: I get the overconsumption of carbohydrates is a masssive problem but we shouldn't all have to pay a higher price because of individuals inability to control and manage their own macronutrient/caloric intake in context of their activity and lifestyle

Mumha

Zamboni wrote: »

I am saying it would be retarded to simply tax fat (or saturated fat) without distinguishing between the various good and bad elements.
I don't think taxing any type of calorie would be smart unless it is proven to be harmful to humans like a transfat.
It is wrong to tax calories as they are fundamentally important for our survival, when it is really the behaviour of specific consumer that needs to addressed.
It's like charging everybody higher air tickets to cover the cost of installing specialised fat seats for obese clients.:)

PS: I get the overconsumption of carbohydrates is a masssive problem but we shouldn't all have to pay a higher price because of individuals inability to control and manage their own macronutrient/caloric intake in context of their activity and lifestyle

I wouldn't imagine that would be their intention anyway.

Now that is silly to suggest they would be taxing "calories".

mistermouse

Zamboni wrote: »

Sugars are not inheritantly bad for you and we already pay taxes for this product in the form of VAT.
If we are going to tax calories, at the very least pick out the genuine bad boys like hydrogenated fats and single them for taxation/levies.

If a bakery starts up they are supposed to send their recipies to Dublin castle to have the VAT rate decided on, primarily on whether they are considered a luxury good, so therefore the above post is right, there is a tax on it by way of VAT, high sugar contents are more likely to be at 21% rather than 0%

Cookie_Monster

mistermouse wrote: »

If a bakery starts up they are supposed to send their recipies to Dublin castle to have the VAT rate decided on, primarily on whether they are considered a luxury good, so therefore the above post is right, there is a tax on it by way of VAT, high sugar contents are more likely to be at 21% rather than 0%

I doubt that tbh, the gov (esp through the Safe Food agency) actively promotes terrible food consumption patterns via the like of the food pyramid. Bread on on their list of 6 carbs a day for instance... There was a highly entertaining thread about it in Health & Fitness a while back.

Safe Food arrived in to blab on about how great the food pyramid is etc and were torn apart by most knowledgeable posters, yet refused to take any of it on board and subsequently withdrew from Boards. Fat was simply labelled as bad, carbs good no matter the source :pac:

mistermouse

Yes its true, if you want to register your food production business for Vat and you'll find that you probably do to sell to retailers, you need to get a vat rating on each receipe. It is 21% for sugary products.

Xenophile

Tax sugar beet production at source with a view to subsidising Honey production. Of course many sugar beet growers would have the option of producing natural honey!

Xenophile

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

Also if you did tax it it would only be replaced with artificial sweeteners, why bother? I doubt these are in any way better than a natural product...

Tax on beet production could be used to subsidise Honey production, many sugar beet growers would have the option of beekeeping

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWY3b5jCXLU

Cookie_Monster

Xenophile wrote: »

Tax sugar beet production at source with a view to subsidising Honey production. Of course many sugar beet growers would have the option of producing natural honey!

what sugar beet production?

Xenophile

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

what sugar beet production?

Yes sugar beet is produced by growing it from seed.

Cookie_Monster

Xenophile wrote: »

Yes sugar beet is produced by growing it from seed.

:rolleyes:

There is no sugar beet production* in Ireland, how do you propose we tax something we don't do?

*commercial

Xenophile

There are plans being drawn up that is why the issue is now being raised