The government would like to tax hard liquor more, while LREM deputies are proposing to increase the soda tax on sugary drinks.
Replenish the state coffers with alcoholic beverages? The government is thinking about it. According to the newspaper The echoes, the authorities plan to increase the tax on hard liquor by 10% – to more than 15 degrees. This would generate 150 million euros, while pursuing a public health objective.
This tax would not apply to wines or beers, but pineaux and muscats would meet the conditions. Currently, alcoholic beverages are in fact subject to specific taxation. Part of the revenue it generates finances Social Security.
Soda tax
Already in 2016, the Court of Auditors recommended increasing the tax on alcoholic beverages, while 50,000 deaths are attributed to alcohol each year in France. The increase in the tax, if adopted, could be part of the alcoholism prevention plan to be presented by the Minister of Health, Agnès Buzyn.
But another lead is also on the table, this time coming from parliamentarians from La République en Marche (LREM). The deputies would thus like to amend the 2018 Social Security budget, presented this Wednesday in the Council of Ministers, in order to include a tax which would target, this time, sodas.
“Tax the poorest”?
Increasing the “soda tax” would help fight obesity, according to these deputies led by Olivier Véran, general rapporteur of the bill. Under the previous legislature, this hospital practitioner, already a member of Parliament, campaigned for the ban of soda fountains in communities, recalls The echoes.
But this Wednesday, during the hearing of Agnes Buzyn in the Committee on Social Affairs, the Minister of Health expressed doubts about the relevance of increasing the soda tax. “We are going to tax the poorest”, she warned, referring to other methods of prevention, such as “health education or parenting education”.
.
