Tobacco duties offer strong argument in favour of sugar tax
Taxing the sugar content of beverages will reduce demand for the products and encourage producers to cut sugar content
The positive effect that taxes on alcohol and tobacco had on consumer behaviour provided a strong argument in favour of the Treasury’s proposed tax on sugar sweetened beverages, University of Cape Town (UCT) economics professor Corne van Walbeek said on Tuesday. Van Walbeek, the principal investigator in the Economics of Tobacco Control Project, made a submission to the public hearings on the tax organised jointly by Parliament’s standing committee on finance and the health portfolio committee. The Treasury has proposed the tax as a way of combating obesity and its associated noncommunicable diseases. Implementation is due to take effect provisionally on April 1.
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