Illinois sweetened beverage tax goes into effect July 1st 2017-moved to the 12th now

[palou]

spurgeonryan said:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-cook-county-soda-tax-preview-0625-biz-20170622-story.html

 

Currently it is only for Cook county, which is mostly Chicago and it's suburbs. The tax includes drinks with less that 50 percent milk, Soda, mixes that have sugar in them, juice, etc.

To go further the tax is not just a few cents per drink, it is a penny per ounce! How is that fair to anyone? This is not the same as sin tax which we have on tobacco and alcohol or the tax that is on ammunition. Those items are not something that everyone buys. You want a bad habit, then that is what you pay.

The sweetened beverage tax attacks everyone, including businesses in Cook county. It will cause such a large migration of shoppers that Cook county will lose more in sales tax than they will gain from suckers who are stuck paying this fee. By the way, the poor, whome I feel this tax should have been aimed at to help better their life, are not affected. Food stamps do not have sales tax.

Time will tell what the actual goal of this horrible tax. For now families across Illinois will have to suffer.

 

Thoughts?

Great idea, but needs to be nationwide to truly have the desired effect (and excluding foodstamps is stupid. I would, in fact, exclude soda from the foodstamp program). Still, it's a good initiative, I hope that it eases other states into implementing the same measures.

 

The negative impact of soda on the nation's helalth is beyond reasonable doubt. This could seriously improve insurance costs in the long run, as well.