French Senate Report Calls for Junk-Food Tax

A French Senate committee has issued a report, “Taxation and Public
Health: Evaluation of Behavioral Taxation,” urging lawmakers to implement
a “behavioral tax” to counteract poor dietary habits and help cover health
care expenditures associated with consumption of “unhealthy” foods. While
emphasizing the need for a sugar-sweetened beverage tax, the report also
advocates harmonizing tax rates on vegetable oils, aligning cigarette and
other tobacco product taxes, and repealing value-added tax breaks for certain
foods and drinks linked to increased health care costs. See Tax-News.com,
March 20, 2014.

Issue 518