There are many people who are a healthy weight, do regular exercise and generally have a healthy diet. These people like to enjoy the odd bottle of coke or bar of chocolate. And why shouldn’t they? Everyone deserves to treat themselves once in a while. Even the top athletes these days get to go wild and have a McDonalds every now and again. Why should these people be charged extra tax just because the government are attempting to stop unhealthy people buying them? Especially at a time when the country isn’t in a great economic state and as we all know, money doesn’t grow on trees. But everyone needs something small to treat themselves from time to time. I believe a tax like this would be highly unfair.
If we think about how much a bar of chocolate costs today; a regular bar of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk costs approximately eighty cents. The most expensive chocolate bars would cost in or around a euro. How much tax can really be put on a bar of chocolate? Even with a 100% tax a chocolate bar would cost no more than €2. Now consider a drug addict, even if their dealer puts up the price, they are still going to want their fix. A chocoholic is effectively the same scenario. Is a euro or so extra on a bar of chocolate really going to stop a chocoholic from buying their favourite bar on a regular basis? I highly doubt it.
Now if we consider the price of a 500ml bottle of coke, on average it would cost about €3 in a pub. Add a tax on top of that and it could be round €4 or more. Also, the price of a pint of beer is about €4. It would work out that a glass of coke could cost more than a pint of beer. In a country where we’re trying to reduce the amount of alcohol consumed and trying to prevent drink-driving, and where money is tight for everyone; it really isn’t a good idea to be cheaper to spend a night drinking alcohol rather than soft drinks. This sort of government taxing would not do the country any good, either economically or morally.
I hope these arguments have shown how it would be completely detrimental to the society in Ireland in which we live to introduce higher taxes on soft drinks and junk food.
J.N