soda tax

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Santa Cruz Thumbs Its Nose at Soda Industry With New Tax

Voters approved 2-cent-per-ounce tax in November

(Newser) - Santa Cruz is set to begin collecting a new tax on sugary drinks starting Thursday, marking the first such levy in California since a 2018 state law that blocked new local grocery taxes. Voters in the city of 60,000 approved the measure in November, establishing a 2-cent-per-ounce tax...

Costco Sign for Gatorade Shows Wild Impact of Seattle's New Tax

Ouch

(Newser) - "That new soda tax in Seattle is working out about as well as Chicago's," proclaims a headline at Hot Air . It's not a compliment. The tax, which went into effect Jan. 1, slaps an additional 1.75 cents on each fluid ounce of sugar-sweetened drinks, a...

Philadelphia Will Start Taxing Each Ounce of Soda

Industry spent millions trying to block Philly tax

(Newser) - Philadelphia became the first major American city with a soda consumption tax on Thursday despite a multimillion-dollar campaign by the beverage industry to block it. The City Council gave final approval to a 1.5-cent-per-ounce tax on sugary and diet beverages. The tax is set to take effect Jan. 1....

City Making Big Change to Kids' Fast-Food Orders

In Davis, California, the choice of beverage will be milk or water

(Newser) - It's not a typical question heard in fast-food restaurants, but the city of Davis, California, hopes to change that with a new rule: It will require servers to ask kids (or the parents ordering for them) if they'd like milk or water with their meal. Customers would still...

Soda Giants: You Drink Too Many Calories—From Soda

Big 3 promise 20% cut by 2025

(Newser) - Even America's soda-makers agree that people are getting too many calories from their products, and the biggest three have now pledged to cut calorie consumption by a fifth by 2025. Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and Dr Pepper Snapple Group won't actually be reducing the number of calories their products contain,...

Time for a Federal Tax on Soda

 Time for 
 a Federal 
 Tax on Soda 
OPINION
Jul 30, 2014 11:33 AM CDT

Time for a Federal Tax on Soda

Mark Bittman salutes bill being introduced today

(Newser) - A Connecticut congresswoman is proposing a federal tax on soda, and chef and columnist Mark Bittman is throwing his weight behind it. "A well-crafted soda tax is likely to work to reduce consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages, and therefore obesity, and therefore diabetes, and therefore health care costs, and to...

Mexico Could Soon Tax Junk Food

5% tax on high-calorie food and drink passes lower house

(Newser) - Proposed soda taxes have been shot down in the US, but in Mexico, that bottle of Jarritos could soon cost more. Legislation that will tax high-calorie food and sugary drinks was approved by Mexico's Chamber of Deputies yesterday. Now it's headed to the Senate, where it's also...

Why We Need to Jack the Bottle Deposit

Figure hasn't nearly increased with inflation

(Newser) - The goals of health advocates and environmental activists don't always mesh, notes Daniel Engber at Slate : For instance, while health experts would tell you to go for smaller soda bottles to prevent downing too much, eco-warriors would prefer you to buy bigger bottles and save packaging. But Engber has...

Denmark's Economic Savior: Cheaper Soda

Nation is scrapping its soda tax to encourage spending

(Newser) - It's a policy that would make New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg gag . Over in Denmark, politicians are repealing their country's tax on sodas (and beer), in an effort to give their struggling economy some fizz, reports Der Spiegel . The soda tax will be cut in half in July,...

NYC's Soda Ban Passes Easily
 NYC's Soda Ban Passes Easily 
Sep 13, 2012 12:10 PM CDT

NYC's Soda Ban Passes Easily

...Possibly because Michael Bloomberg appointed the board

(Newser) - New York City's Board of Health overwhelmingly passed Michael Bloomberg's proposed ban on large sodas and other sugary drinks today—a result that surprised exactly no one, given that Bloomberg appointed the entire board, the Wall Street Journal reports. Before the vote, Bloomberg's administration delivered a 20-minute...

Calif. City's Budget Fix: Soda Tax

Would raise $7M per year, officials say

(Newser) - El Monte, Calif., is staring down a fiscal emergency, but it's about to pop the top on a solution that could raise $7 million per year: Tax sugary drinks. The California city will ask voters to decide on the plan, which calls for sugar-sweetened beverages sold within the city...

Why Food Must Be Regulated Like Tobacco

David Lazarus: It's time to stop the obesity epidemic

(Newser) - The obesity news just keeps getting worse, the latest example being the study warning that 4 in 10 American adults could be obese in less than 20 years. "Americans eat too damn much," writes David Lazarus in the Los Angeles Times . And though it may be distasteful to...

French 'Cola Tax' Starts Next Week

Tax on soda will help state coffers, rising obesity

(Newser) - Two things in France keep getting bigger: the deficit and the nation's waistline . To fight both simultaneously, a new "cola tax" will go into effect on New Year's Day, reports Der Spiegel . The tax will be a little more than a penny per can on Coke and...

Bittman: Time to Tax Junk Food
 Bittman: 
 Time to Tax 
 Junk Food 
OPINION
Jul 24, 2011 11:14 AM CDT

Bittman: Time to Tax Junk Food

With obesity costing US billions, gov't must help health

(Newser) - With the "Standard American Diet" producing ever more heart disease, diabetes, and cancer, it's time to tax junk food and subsidize vegetables, writes Mark Bittman in the New York Times . "Right now it’s harder for many people to buy fruit than Froot Loops," he says,...

Government Shouldn't Moralize About Our Food
Government Shouldn't Moralize About Our Food
opinion
Jul 29, 2010 1:08 PM CDT

Government Shouldn't Moralize About Our Food

Leave that to the private marketplace

(Newser) - The government has a wide range of choices when it comes to encouraging public health, from hands-off (the preference of libertarians) to so-called sin taxes to outright bans on, say, junk food in schools. Here's one option they need to stop: paying for ad campaigns that vilify certain foods, writes...

Soda Tax Threat a Boon for Food Lobbyists

Industry pours millions into fight against it

(Newser) - Capitol Hill’s flirtation with a national excise tax on sugary drinks has been good for someone: food lobbyists. Soda makers, supermarkets, and fast-food restaurants have spent more than $24 million fighting the tax, the Huffington Post reports. “We are reacting to the situation we find ourselves in,"...

Soda Tax Deserves to Fizzle
 Soda Tax Deserves to Fizzle 
OPINION
Sep 30, 2009 1:39 PM CDT

Soda Tax Deserves to Fizzle

It won't help fat people, or poor people, but will line gov't coffers

(Newser) - Taxing soda is at best a stupid idea and at worst a cynical ploy by a money-grubbing government, writes Katherine Mangu-Ward for Reason. Here's why:
  • Sin taxes don't work: "None of the nickel-and-dime proposals on the table is large enough to discourage soda drinking," Mangu-Ward writes. "And
...

'Fat Tax' Is Really a Poor Tax
 'Fat Tax' Is Really 
 a Poor Tax 
OPINION
Sep 22, 2009 1:17 PM CDT

'Fat Tax' Is Really a Poor Tax

(Newser) - With Congress contemplating a trillion dollar health care bill, the idea of the “fat tax” has come back into vogue as a way to slim down Americans. Supporters say junk food is every bit the addictive drug that cigarettes are, designed by food scientists to be “hyperpalatable,”...

Health Experts Call for Soda Tax

Critics say it won't reduce obesity

(Newser) - Health experts say a tax on sugary sodas would take a big bite out of the obesity epidemic, ABC News reports. Taxing "sugar-sweetened beverages is really a double-win," said the co-author of a new paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine. "We can raise much-needed...

Soda Tax Makes Good Sense
 Soda Tax Makes Good Sense 
OPINION
May 20, 2009 10:49 AM CDT

Soda Tax Makes Good Sense

(Newser) - The soda tax is a great idea, and its probable death at the hands of lobbyists serves to highlight all the problems with our tax system, writes David Leonhardt in the New York Times. The current system doesn’t raise enough money, and it’s “complex in all the...

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