Tag: tax
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Romania Considers Tax on Fast Food
The Romanian government has reportedly proposed a tax on fast foods high in fat, sugar and salt. Backed by the European Public Health Alliance, the health ministry has sought to create the world’s most comprehensive tax scheme that would include, not just sugary foods and beverages, but savory fare as well. Proponents have claimed that…
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Battle over Soft Drink Taxes Gains Momentum
Facing budget shortfalls in the upcoming fiscal year, several state and city legislatures are reportedly considering a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages. Kansas Senator John Vratil (R-Leawood) this week proposed a bill (S.B. 567) that would tax such products, including energy and sports drinks, at the rate of one penny per teaspoon of sugar. According to…
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Rudd Center to Hold Soft Drink Tax Webinar
Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity has announced a March 9, 2010, webinar to discuss “the rationale, relevant science, and economic and policy considerations of soft drink taxes.” The conference will reportedly update participants about the latest developments in state and local policies since July 2009, when director Kelly Brownell presented the…
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Tom Hamburger & Kim Geiger, “Beverage industry douses tax on soft drinks,” Houston Chronicle, February 8, 2010
According to this article, pressure from the beverage industry has made policymakers think twice about imposing a tax on sugary beverages, which some have viewed as a way to address both revenue deficits and obesity. The reporters discuss how Congress has handled the issue since the Obama administration indicated an interest in the tax in…
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Marni Jameson, “Fed up with fat and saying something about it,” Los Angeles Times, February 1, 2010
This article chronicles a growing movement among “normal weight folks” who have become “vocal, sometimes vehemently so, in their support for ‘sin taxes’ on junk foods and soda,” and who have “increasingly attacked, with words or actions, the overweight or obese.” Jameson quotes Douglas Metz, chief of health services for a San Diego-based company that…
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New York Governor Proposes Soda Tax to Help Balance Budget
New York Governor David Paterson (D) has released a 2010-11 executive budget proposal that calls for “a new excise tax of approximately one penny per ounce on sugared beverages linked to obesity ($465 million).” According to the proposal, which claims that obesity-related disease costs the state’s health care system $7.6 billion annually, the so-called soda…
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New York Daily News Guest Columnist Peter Singer Advocates Meat Tax
A high tax on meat is needed for meat-eaters to consume less, ultimately resulting in multiple benefits to human health, animal welfare and the environment, writes Peter Singer, a Princeton University bioethics professor and author of Animal Liberation and co-author of The Ethics of What We Eat, in an October 25, 2009, guest column in the…
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More Comparisons of Food and Tobacco Made
Venture capitalist and physician Mitchell Blutt, writing for Forbes.com, suggests that the rising cost of health care will lead inexorably to the stigmatization of unhealthy foods as the “new tobacco.” According to Blutt, unhealthy food will one day be “publicly identified as an addictive problem and perhaps even some day, deemed a drug.” He believes…