Philadelphia's soda tax already being felt

[SaltyTiger 7,798]

4 minutes ago, homersapien said:

The totally ignorant.

Who are they?

[homersapien 11,373]

14 hours ago, SaltyTiger said:

Who are they?

Are you looking to enlist?

[SaltyTiger 7,798]

9 hours ago, homersapien said:

Are you looking to enlist?

No. but I would love to see tobacco taxes up. and fat people quit walking around with a supersized soda.

Fat and diabetes is a huge problem...... 

[Auburn85 432]

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/city-soda-tax-revenue-to-fall-short-20170613.html

 

 

Quote

 

Philly: Soda tax revenue to fall short

The city will lower its projections for beverage tax revenue this fiscal year, saying the tax will bring in less than had been anticipated.

 

The 1.5-cent-per-ounce tax on sweetened beverages, in effect since January, has brought in $25.6 million, but will fall short of a projected $46.2 million for fiscal year 2017, which ends June 30. While the size of the shortage is unclear, to hit its projected target, the city would need to collect $20 million from May through June, a near-impossibility, the Kenney administration recognized, given that the highest monthly revenue so far has been $7 million in March.

As first reported by Billy Penn on Tuesday, the mayor’s office said it would lower its revenue projections when it presents a revised five-year plan later this month, but it will keep in place its prediction for fiscal year 2018.

City spokeswoman Lauren Hitt said the budget office still believes it will hit its fiscal year 2018 projection of $92 million for the tax because the levy is only four months old and the city is still “working out the kinks.”

“We’re not concerned. Out of the four months of collection, three were solid and very much where we expected to be, so we still expect to hit our long-term projections,” she said.

Members of the Ax the Tax beverage coalition, backed by the American Beverage Association, called the news early evidence that the tax won’t bring in enough to support the programs it funds. “Reality is finally catching up with the mayor’s inflated projections,” Dave McCorkle, president and chief executive officer of the Pennsylvania Food Merchants Association, said in a statement. “The city has yet to achieve its full collections target and is once again moving the goalposts.”

City Controller Alan Butkovitz was skeptical, too, saying the deficit could create a “multimillion-dollar burden” for taxpayers, a concern Mayor Kenney’s office was quick to dismiss as overblown and politically motivated.

Butkovitz, who has publicly criticized the tax,sent a letter to the mayor’s office raising concerns over the shortfall and asking the city why, given the gap, it assumes revenue will bounce back in the next fiscal year. The city projected that it would need to bring in an average of $7.7 million per month, but has yet to hit that target in its first four months.

“The city appears to be creating a short-term and a long-term deficit through the beverage tax by not budgeting with true and accurate figures,” Butkovitz said.

Hitt accused Butkovitz of weighing in for political reasons. Butkovitz opposed the tax during his recent reelection campaign in which he was defeated by Rebecca Rhynhart, a former city budget director. Butkovitz has also met with members of the American Beverage Association this spring.

“The controller has been very open about the fact that he intends to use his remaining months in public service to partner with the beverage industry to paint the tax in a negative light and to advance his own political career,” Hitt said.

Butkovitz said the city was using politics to deflect attention from the numbers. “They admit they’re not reaching their number, and their response is to say, ‘Look over there,’ ” he said. “There’s a shortfall. but we’re going to stick to our initial faulty assumptions? That’s not the way things are done.”

In a letter responding to Butkovitz sent on Tuesday, city finance director Rob Dubow said the city was sticking with its long-term projections because early months were always expected to come in on the lower side of the $7.7 million – on average – the tax needs to bring in per month. He said inventory purchased just before the tax went into effect might have driven down revenue. Dubow also said the city expects seasonality – months when drinks tend to sell better – to make up for some of the slower months.

The city brought in $5.9 million in January, $6.2 million in February, $7 million in March and early returns show $6.5 million in April.

The city recently added 10 additional enforcement staff at an annual cost of $310,090 to continue spreading information on how businesses can register and remit payment.

The tax primarily funds a pre-K program and a city-wide rebuilding of parks and recreation centers, though spending on both programs will be halted while a panel of judges considers the legality of the tax in court.

 

 

[Auburn85 432]

https://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/news/2018/03/13/rhynhart-soda-tax-bevtax-general-fund.html

 

Controller's new soda tax report 'misleading & inaccurate,' says Mayor's Office

The Controller's Office issued a new assessment on the Philadelphia Beverage Tax – the first one under Rebecca Rhynhart's tenure – that shows the controversial tax likely brought in about $6.5 million in revenue during January. Other aspects of the report, however, are drawing ire from pre-K supporters, as well as the Kenney administration, which called the information "misleading and inaccurate."

 

During fiscal year 2018, which began July 1, 2017, the city collected nearly $45.2 million in PBT revenue, according to the Controller's Office, which said its report covers FY18 through March 2. The city has said all along PBT receipts are due on the 20th of the subsequent month, meaning January PBT dollars were required to hit city coffers by Feb. 20. The last numbers out of the city, which covered July through December of last year, showed the PBT brought in $39.7 million. Taken together, it is reasonable to conclude the difference, $6.5 million, is what soda tax distributors sent to city coffers by the most recent Feb. 20 deadline, though the city said it has not been able to run its own analysis to confirm that figure.

The monthly revenue figures have been closely watched by soda tax opponents who regularly claimed they demonstrated the tax is unsustainable. Other details of the controller's report, however, are likely to add more fuel to the opposition's fire.

"The data shows that the majority of revenue generated by the beverage tax is not being spent on pre-K, community schools and debt service for [Rebuild], as originally intended," the Controller's Office said. "... about 74 percent of the nearly $85 million generated by the beverage tax since its inception has gone to the city’s General Fund." That equates to about $63 million.

It's a claim the Mayor's Office questions – pointing out that the somewhat basic analysis fails to account for peripheral spending for pre-K, community schools and Rebuild. It also ignores the fact that City Council already appropriated the bulk of the unspent dollars for the three programs the tax is intended to fund.

"The administration might have preferred it not being told this way, but this shows very clearly and very succinctly how much of the money has been spent on the three items this is supposed to go to," Rhynhart told theBusiness Journal Tuesday. By using the expenditure codes for those three initiatives, Rhynhart concluded about $22 million of the nearly $85 million in PBT revenue collected thus far has gone toward pre-K and community schools, while no dollars have been used for Rebuild.

That number is below the $23.8 million the Mayor's Office said it hadspent between January and August 2017.* Updated figures released as part of Mayor Jim Kenney's budget proposal for fiscal year 2019 are more in line with Rhynhart's overall figure, but there are other discrepancies.

For instance, Rhynhart said $8.4 million was spent on pre-K in fiscal year 2017, while the Kenney Administration said the program cost $11.5 million plus another nearly $580,000 in pre-K supports.

By homing in on those specific expenditure codes, other expenses – like the hires made as part of an outreach and enforcement effort, as well as associated costs of the initiatives – are excluded.

"It is extremely disappointing that the controller chose to issue such misleading and inaccurate information," Mike Dunn, a spokesman for the Mayor's Office, said Tuesday.

The "other" costs listed by the administration include the Healthy Drinks tax credit, costs to collect the soda tax revenue, Parks and Recreation staff and their benefit costs, pre-K and community schools benefit costs, and the senior staff within the Mayor’s Office of Education overseeing the PBT initiatives.

"While we haven’t yet parsed through the Controller Office’s math, a quick analysis shows that the controller is only looking at pre-K and community schools expenditures and is disregarding about $6.6 million of other costs in FY17 alone, such as the costs in Parks and Recreation funding for Rebuild," Dunn continued.

Rhynhart argued that $6.6 million in "other" spending, while included in the legislation, is not how the mayor sold the beverage tax, saying Rebuild was a key part of PBT's marketing yet "no revenue has been used" for that program.

"The irony is instead of commending the administration for its prudence," PCCY Executive Director Donna Cooper said, "they are sort of, on some level, carrying the soda companies' message that there is something nefarious going on here." Cooper said the mayor is acting responsibly by holding off on spending until the Big Soda-backed lawsuit, set to go before the state Supreme Court in May, is resolved.

 

The $63 million that went to the General Fund, according to Rhynhart's report, also includes the previously reported $30 million the city said it put in a reserve, pending the outcome of litigation that aims to overturn the beverage tax.

It led the leader of Public Citizens for Children and Youth, a nonprofit that advocated for pre-K, to question how Rhynhart presented the data.

"The irony is instead of commending the administration for its prudence," PCCY Executive Director Donna Cooper said, "they are sort of, on some level, carrying the soda companies' message that there is something nefarious going on here." Cooper said the mayor is acting responsibly by holding off on spending until the Big Soda-backed lawsuit, set to go before the state Supreme Court in May, is resolved.

Dunn added that the "controller’s recent reporting that beverage tax funds are being held in reserve is actually nothing new. In fall 2016, the beverage industry challenged the tax in court, and as a result the city chose to hold back implementation of the programs."

"In short, all of the money that is in reserve is going to be spent on the programs. This was made clear when Mayor Jim Kenney proposed the tax two years ago, it was made clear during last year’s budget process, and it was made clear on March 1st of this year, when we announced to reporters the revised projections for the beverage tax," he continued.

 

Rhynhart, however, says that explanation isn't good enough. "It should be in a segregated escrow account, which it is not," she said. "Taxpayers when they take on additional taxes, deserve to know, where their money is going."

 

 

[DKW 86 7,423]

On 2/24/2017 at 8:18 PM, homersapien said:

You can't rely on "self responsibility" without knowledge.

I cant imagine even the dumbest Americans not knowing that sodas are bad for everyone.

On 2/24/2017 at 9:34 PM, homersapien said:

I don't think this is a revenue generating tactic.  It's a public health tactic. Just like the taxes on tobacco.

If it was a health issue, then ban the things. I do not think it is a health issue anymore. Our govt has become too addicted to revenues. If this is a serious health issue, why not ban the damn things? because they provide way too much in revenues. If this did work we would double the taxes on gas, tobacco, alcohol, and sugar immediately.

[AU64 10,122]

6 hours ago, DKW 86 said:

I cant imagine even the dumbest Americans not knowing that sodas are bad for everyone.

If it was a health issue, then ban the things. I do not think it is a health issue anymore. Our govt has become too addicted to revenues. If this is a serious health issue, why not ban the damn things? because they provide way too much in revenues. If this did work we would double the taxes on gas, tobacco, alcohol, and sugar immediately.

Yep....and even dumb Americans know how to avoid taxes on things they really want to buy.   Special taxes like this one are only effective until people figure out how to avoid them.

And money being spent for purposes other than intended.....WOW....who would ever have thought that pols would not find a way to divert funds toward their favorite causes.  Sounds like a small potatoes versions of what happens to lottery proceeds in most southern states. 

[homersapien 11,373]

6 hours ago, DKW 86 said:

I cant imagine even the dumbest Americans not knowing that sodas are bad for everyone.

Well, that depends on what you mean by "knowing".  You may be right in terms of the general concept - "sugary drinks are bad for you".   But that's a far cry from actually understanding the risk in particular.

http://www.bphc.org/whatwedo/healthy-eating-active-living/sugar-smarts/be-sugar-smart/Pages/Health-Effects-of-Sugary-Drinks.aspx

 

HEALTH EFFECTS OF SUGARY DRINKS

Sugar may be sweet, but the health effects of sugar consumption are not. Drinking large amounts of sugar can lead to serious health problems.

 

Did you know?

 

• Drinking large amounts of sugary beverages can increase the risk of gaining weight and developing Type 2 diabetes*, heart disease, and gout.**
• Sugary beverage intake is significantly associated with weight gain and obesity. 
• Women who drink one or more sugary beverages daily have almost twice the risk of developing diabetes as those who drink less than one sugary beverage daily. 
• A child’s risk of becoming obese increases by 60% with each additional sugary beverage consumed daily. 
• Children who drink carbonated sugary beverages have almost double the risk of dental cavities.
• Drinking just one 20-ounce bottle of a sugary beverage per day can result in gaining 25 extra pounds per year.
• The health costs of obesity in the United States are about $147 billion annually.  With that money, we could buy everyone in the U.S. an iPad. 
• Learn more about the health effects of drinking sugar-sweetened beverages here.

 

*Type 2 diabetes is a disease where the body cannot properly regulate blood sugar and can result in blindness, lower limb amputation, heart attack, impotence, and death.

 

**Gout is a form of arthritis that causes sudden, severe attacks of pain, redness and tenderness in joints, often the joint at the base of the big toe.

 

And keep in mind that perhaps a large proportion of consumers for these products are children. 

 

We have allowed the food industry to profit by selling products high in sugar (and salt) which are scientifically known to be serious health risks to the consumer.   It's very similar to tobacco, (not to mention opioids).

 

We ought to at least require them to advertise the truth about consuming high quantities of sugar.

 

[homersapien 11,373]

6 hours ago, DKW 86 said:

If it was a health issue, then ban the things. I do not think it is a health issue anymore. Our govt has become too addicted to revenues. If this is a serious health issue, why not ban the damn things? because they provide way too much in revenues. If this did work we would double the taxes on gas, tobacco, alcohol, and sugar immediately.

If it were up to me, I would at least regulate the ingredients or ban them outright.  I don't think that's politically feasible.  A tax is the next best option. 

(Not to change the subject, but I'd also legalize Cannibis, so this is not a "control" thing.)

[homersapien 11,373]

Here's the reference that's linked to the above article.  It's worth reading.

http://www.bphc.org/whatwedo/healthy-eating-active-living/sugar-smarts/beverage-environment/Documents/SSB Fact Sheet Update June 23 2014.pdf

 

This was interesting: 

Beverage companies openly target teens with their marketing programs. (20)

Beverage companies have indicated that they view Hispanics and blacks as a source of future growth for their sugary drink products. (21)