This story is crazy. Zero Hedge: "Masses Shocked By Philly Beverage Tax Impact." Sugary drinks in the city of Brotherly Love are hit with a huge "Philly Bev Tax."
Keep your eye on this latest effort to tax Americans for their "own good." It's not like we haven't seen this show before.
3 comments:
Pretty feeble gotcha in that Daily Caller link. Part of the rationale for cigarette taxes is to reduce the number of citizens smoking. Another part of the tax rationale is to allay the future cost of smokers' health issues that is borne by all taxpayers.
Whether it's causation, coincidence, or both, the smoking rate in New York State has gone down substantially, even after including the bump in out-of-state cigarette sales. Smokers paid more in 2015, everyone pays less in 2045.
Last year's drop in cigarette tax revenues noted by the Daily Caller represents 0.000013% of New York State's annual tax revenue. You don't want to know how that budgetary hit compares with the state's corporate tax breaks, including those granted to one tweet-centric New York real estate developer.
What about the enormous boon to organized crime, considering that 58% of cigarettes in NYC come from out-of-state?
I remember reading somewhere that the city had a guy walk around the city picking up empty cigarette packs and then checking the tax stamp on them. That's how they found out how much Fat Tony is making.
Obviously there are consequences in all directions. That's why I brought up corporate tax breaks, which some people think are the "good" kind of budgetary tax hole. Sometimes it is. There's more than one way for a state to lose revenue in anticipation of making it back later.
And so, how big a change in public life expectancy is worth absorbing, to hit Big Tony in his pocket? What level of future tax hikes should there be on all citizens, including those non-smokers who bear no responsibility for the cost but will be paying their unfair share anyway, to avoid the wider consequences of targeted tax hikes today? Outside of one-size-fits-all analysis like the Daily Caller's, there's no single, simple answer to these questions.
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