This post has been update to reflect new information. A new post, explaining the clarifications in detail is here.

Several Democratic state lawmakers say they want to draft a bill that would tax bulk soda pop syrup. The legislative session begins on Monday, and, while a bill hasn’t yet been filed, the idea is gaining traction as one of several piecemeal tax proposals to help shore up the state’s $2.6 billion budget shortfall.

Taxing soda “serves a double purpose,” says State Senator Jeanne Kohl-Welles (D-36), who already prefiled a bill to tax gum and candy. In addition to generating revenue, she says, “it can help reduce the growing incidents of obesity in adults and children.”

Kohl-Welles says that “there is a lot of talk” among lawmakers to draft the bill—but it’s not an original idea. Several doctors called for a tax on sugar-sweetened drinks in a paper published by the New England Journal of Medicine last September, and the idea of taxing soda and bottled water has been bandied around in Washington state before. But the budget crisis is making it more appealing.

“There would be some people upset certainly with any tax,” says State Senator Joe McDermott (D-34). “The case for taxing pop is that it is not a necessarily a food item, it is laden with sugar. It is not a healthy food. If we tax it, not only do we drive up the state revenue, it could also have some impact on child obesity, decreasing diabetes rates in the state, and therefore have a positive effect on health care costs.”

McDermott adds, “Yes, the state sales tax exemption for food is important—no one will suggest taxing fruits and vegetables—but soda pop should be seen as a luxury rather than a staple of our diet.” [UPDATE—McDermott corrects his statement to say that retail soda sales are already taxed; the proposal at issue concerns bulk soda syrup.]

Both lawmakers caution that—while soda is an easy target—the taxes wouldn’t generate that much revenue. But there’s a solution to that: Tax the hell out of soda. People will still drink it (they drink it by the $5 tub at the movies) and help the state as they do it.

32 replies on “WA Lawmakers Consider Taxing Soda Pop”

  3. Why not do a public service?

    Add $4 per pack of cigarettes.
    Add $3 per gallon of gasoline.
    Add $2 per 12 oz of soda.
    Add $1 per 10 pieces of gum with sugar or candy.

    All to the general fund — none of this “road specific” crap.

  5. If it’s addictive, tax it.
    If it’s a burden on the environment, tax it.
    If it’s pleasurable, tax it.
    See that thing over there? the blue thing, tax it.

  6. Well, unless the legislation specifically exempts non-HFCS sweetened beverages, pretty much everything in a can or bottle, except maybe water could end up being taxed.

    I mean, will this tax cover sports and energy drinks? What about so-called health beverages (e.g. Sobe)? Green tea-based beverages? Fruit juices? Just carbonated or will it include non-carbonated?

    I’m not against the idea of taxing all HFCS-based beverages, I just think the tax should be limited to ONLY those products.

  7. Won’t we just see soda drinkers move from sugar (corn syrup)-sweetened to diet fake-sugar-sweetened drinks? Is that really a lot better?

  9. I thought it was already subject to sales tax. I could swear that when they added the food exemption to sales tax (years ago — I think I was in junior high or something) that pop was not included in the exemption. Did they change that at some point, or was I just wrong all these years?

    In reading http://apps.leg.wa.gov/WAC/default.aspx?… it seems to indicate that soft drinks are already taxed, unless I’m misreading it.

    “3) What does not qualify for the exemptions? The exemptions do not apply to the following items, which are not considered “food or food ingredients” or which are otherwise specifically excluded from the exemptions:

    … (e) Soft drinks. Soft drinks are excluded from the exemptions. “Soft drinks” means any nonalcoholic beverage that contains natural or artificial sweeteners, except beverages that contain:

    • Milk or milk products;

    • Soy, rice, or similar milk substitutes; or

    • More than fifty percent by volume of vegetable or fruit juice.

    For example, sweetened sports beverages are considered “soft drinks,” but a sweetened soy beverage is a food or food ingredient.

    Beverage mixes that are not sold in liquid form are not soft drinks even though they are intended to be made into a beverage by the customer. Examples include powdered fruit drinks, powdered tea or coffee drinks, and frozen concentrates. These items are a food or food ingredient and are not subject to retail sales tax.”

    So is the proposal actually to add an additional tax? Because they already collect sales tax on it as far as I can tell.

  10. Soda pop? Ha. People will just stop drinking the stuff.
    A tax on coffee drinks would be much more effective… and will never happen.

  13. Tax every food product that is supposed to be one serving yet contains over 17g sugar. That includes flavored yogurt, pop, cookies, fruit juice. Americans ingest over 140 lbs of sugar per year: if everyone had no more than 40 grams of sugar (Recommended daily allowance) per day, a little over 32 lbs would be ingested.

  14. Considering that soda is not food nor does it have any nutritional value, it should not be considered tax-exempt as food. Sounds fair to me.

  15. If they’re truly concerned with getting people to eat healthier (which I doubt) then they should use the tax revenue as subsidies or tax credits or something to give to people when they buy healthier stuff.

    But that’s unlikely. The revenue will probably just go into building a road or simply right into some guys pocket.

  16. though you couldn’t put it past Eyman and Big Soda to try and get in there and sticky up the whole process with a unholy syrup composed of his sliminess and their HFCS.

  17. If you get thirsty, I’ll tax your Coke
    If you light up, I’ll tax the smoke
    If you start to laugh, I’ll tax the joke
    If you’re jerking off, I’ll tax your stroke

    Taxman!

    This would be a good tax though.

  19. 9: … (e) Soft drinks. Soft drinks are excluded from the exemptions. “Soft drinks” means any nonalcoholic beverage that contains natural or artificial sweeteners, except beverages that contain:

    Good detective work! From that WAC, it sure seems like they already don’t qualify for an exemption from sales tax. It could be that they’re planning to increase the tax on soft drinks but that’s not what Holden’s piece says.

    I like this part of the WAC…

    “Prepared food” does not include food sold by a seller whose proper primary North American industry classification system (NAICS) classification is manufacturing in sector 311, except subsector 3118 (bakeries), unless the food is sold with utensils provided by the seller (see subsection (4)(c) of this section).

    I can hear the trailer for the new sci-fi film Subsector 3118 with the narrator’s voice intoning, “In a world, filled with bakeries where rainforests once grew…”

  21. Funny that Dominic “let’s punish people into being better citizens” Holden would lie or exaggerate to further a nanny state ruling. I never would have expected it. Ever. Right?

  22. @9) Good find. I’m not certain, but I’ll find out and post the answer. In my conversations today, lawmakers were clear that they were considering a proposal to remove soda’s exemption to state sales tax. However, the WAC you cite suggests soda is already exempt.

  24. They should tax the crap out of it. If it’s got more than 20 grams of sugar per serving it’s not a food item, it’s fucking candy. “healthy” food items that are unprepared should remain tax free, but if you want to buy the dark sugar soda you should be expecting to pay more. There’s no reason people should think to buy that crap instead of say, 2 or 3 fruits or veggies, the ratio should be much larger, you should be able to buy 10 or so servings of fruits or vegetables for the same price as the candy sode pop. I think the problem we’ve had has largely been with subsidies that help drive the price of these (“bad”) items down, so the idea of ONLY taxing them seems kind of silly, you should also take away the subsidies you’re giving them to create the problem in the first place. However I tend to think these items are so bad that you can do both and still come out with a problem, but at least now you’ll have some money to attempt to fix it.

  26. Families ’round here are counting pennies to get through this economy, so when we hear about another tax, it gets our attention.

    Washington is talking about a new tax on juice drinks and soda. They say it’s only pennies. Well, those pennies add up when you’re trying to feed a family.

    Washington, if you’re listening: What doesn’t seem like a much to you, can be a lot to us.

  28. @28 If you’re counting your pennies so closely, maybe you should consider not wasting your money on liquid candy in the first fucking place.

    There’s this stuff, it comes out of the tap, it’s called water. Not only does it sustain life but you’re already paying for it!

  29. There’s nothing stupider than someone buying bottled water that originally came from Seattle’s own watershed.

    And yet many of our own citizens do it.

  30. @30 We’ve talked about the tough times, son.

    Like a lot of families, we’ve had cut back in this ecomomy and now we’re hearing about a new tax on juice drinks and sodas. It’s a tax that hurts families that can least afford it and it comes at the worst possible time.

    Makes you wonder, what’s next?

    Washington, please hear us, we just can’t take any more taxes right now.

  31. Great policy idea, but we need to raise $1.7 billion in new revenues to avoid shredding the safefy net and continue funding Basic Health and education. A tax on candy and gum, as noted, raises “only” $30 million. A 5-cent tax on a can of soda raises $95 million. Taxing bottles of water is more productive. Increasing the cigarette tax raises $88 million. Rather than take a series of votes that close only 1/20th or less of the budget deficit, these taxes should be combined into one bill. that still leaves us far short, so we need to ask legislators to close some big non-performing tax exemptions, and to look at some bigger revenue sources. The most productive one would be to extend the sales tax to all services, not just financial services or professional services. This is more progressive than raising the sales tax, because poor people are less likely to use services than wealthy people.

  32. @32

    Here’s a Tough Times Money Saving Tip. This one is free too, what with the tough times and all.

    Stop buying soda. It’s bad for you and if times are so tough that a few cents tax is going to break you then maybe visit the idea of not wasting money on luxuries until you can reasonably afford them.

    Or just keep filling yourself full of sugar water and enjoy your diabetes.

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