
Philadelphians Drink a Lot More Alcohol Since the City's Soda Tax Was Imposed - kgwgk
https://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2018/08/philadelphians-sure-drink-lot-more.html
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mikeyouse
Are they honestly suggesting a substitution effect between soda and liquor?
God the Tax Foundation is ever more hackish than usual. The blog then
continues to make an extended comparison to show how much more people are
drinking:

> _Of course, that 's a ridiculous number, because Pennsylvania prohibits the
> sale of alcoholic beverages to individuals under the age of 21. That
> prohibition blocks some 26% of the city's population from even being able to
> buy Icehouse beer, assuming that the law is actively enforced against
> Philadelphia residents under that age. If we do the back-of-the-envelope
> math to estimate how many extra equivalent 12-fluid-ounce bottles of
> Icehouse beer that Philadelphia's adult population is consuming, we come up
> with a monthly increase of 12.9 bottles per legal drinking-age
> Philadelphian, or over 154 bottles of Icehouse beer per adult in the city
> per year._

So adding 15 cents to the cost of a can of coke led people in Philly to drink
_26 additional six-packs of beer_ annually?

Gee -- There's a huge spike in early 2018 that's really throwing that whole
chart off. I wonder if anything else happened in Philly in early 2018 that
would explain a huge spike in alcohol consumption:

[https://www.si.com/nfl/2018/02/05/super-bowl-52-eagles-
patri...](https://www.si.com/nfl/2018/02/05/super-bowl-52-eagles-patriots-
peter-king-mmqb)

~~~
narag
What does soda tax tax? Soda or sugar soda? I mean, is diet coke also taxed?
In that case, what's the reason? If not, why is it called soda tax instead of
sugar tax?

Has the tax affected strong liquours mixes? (not sure how do you call it, i
mean whisky/ron/vodka/etc + soda) Then drinking beer would be a downsizing
option.

~~~
tzs
Here's what it covers, straight from the City of Philadelphia's website [1]:

> What is taxed

> The tax is not just on sodas. This tax is on any non-alcoholic beverage,
> syrup, or other concentrate used to prepare a beverage that lists as an
> ingredient any form of caloric sugar-based sweetener, including, but not
> limited to sucrose, glucose, or high fructose corn syrup.

> Drinks considered “diet” or “zero calorie” are also taxed. Specifically,
> this tax is on any non-alcoholic beverage, syrup or other concentrate used
> to prepare a beverage that lists any form of artificial sugar substitute,
> including stevia, aspartame, sucralose, neotame, acesulfame potassium
> (Ace-K), saccharin, and advantame.

> Examples of sweetened beverages

> Soda (regular and diet); non-100%-fruit drinks; sports drinks; sweetened
> water; energy drinks; pre-sweetened coffee or tea; and non-alcoholic
> beverages intended to be mixed into an alcoholic drink.

[1] [https://www.phila.gov/services/payments-assistance-
taxes/bus...](https://www.phila.gov/services/payments-assistance-
taxes/business-taxes/philadelphia-beverage-tax/)

~~~
berbec
What's the logic behind not taxing 100% juice? It has just as much sugar as a
Coke; the fact the sugar comes from a grape/apple/guava etc changes one thing
- it's now "naturally" sweetened sugar water.

~~~
tzs
As a guess, it is because whether or not the tax applies seems to be based on
the ingredient list.

100% orange juice, for example, typically lists either just orange juice, or
orange juice plus added vitamins. So, not taxed.

The less-than-100% juice drinks usually add sweeteners in addition to the
sweetness that comes from the fruit juice. So, taxed.

~~~
berbec
Think they can bypass this by using concentrated juices as sweeteners?

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noobermin
Is it just me or does this seem misleading? Highlighting an area on the graph
before and after the enacted date seems to prime skimmers into seeing the
trend the article wants to argue. On the other hand, making a line through the
min and max over time (by eye) just shows an increasing trend from the
beginning of the plot to the end.

EDIT: here you go [https://imgur.com/a/Fh5T9LZ](https://imgur.com/a/Fh5T9LZ)

~~~
dragonwriter
Yeah, it's especially distorted because thet just average the 42 month period
before and then the 18 month period after. They could, with e dame source
data, average each of the seven 6-month period before, and each of the three
6-month periods after, which would make, which would make it clearer if the
highly volatile measure was increasing over time before and if anything
significant changed with the time at issue. (And even then, pretending that
the event to which it is ascribed is the only relevant thing at that time
is... dubious.)

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MikeLui
The increase also coincides with the change in federal administrations, and
any number of other significant events. The title is unnecessarily suggestive.

Edit: Someone else also pointed out the super bowl win, which is also a likely
factor. You can probably make this data fit whatever narrative you want to
sell.

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lawtguy
Take a look at the City of Philadelphia's Department of Revenue annual report
([https://www.phila.gov/media/20161122003302/2016-Annual-
Repor...](https://www.phila.gov/media/20161122003302/2016-Annual-Report.pdf)).
Page 18 is the revenue from liquor tax since FY08. You'll see it's been rising
steadily over that time. The Department of Revenue attributes this rise to
better enforcement of tax collection (they say the same in their FY16 report
as well). It certainly possible that some consumers are switching from buy
soda to buying alcohol, but I don't think you can attribute all of the change
in liquor tax revenue to the soda tax.

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lalos
Not very familiar with this situation but it makes sense, the price increase
on soda would bridge the gap between that and the price of a beer which would
make the customer think twice if it might be worth it to spend a little bit
more and get the more expensive option. It's like marketing pricing strategy
but triggered by taxes and not a single company.

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PopeDotNinja
I started drinking diet soda because drinking regular soda like it was water
was suboptimal. I drank regular soda because water in restaurants often tastes
funny, or it comes out in tiny glasses that rarely get refilled. I hate coffee
& tea. So when I stop drinking diet soda, I usually end up drinking more
alcohol because I don't like or want everything else :P

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ajeet_dhaliwal
Why do US cities have these taxes if the government isn’t on the hook for the
related health issues anyway? Or are they?

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jessaustin
This has got to be the most regressive tax ever invented... which is something
of an "accomplishment".

~~~
koboll
Honestly, we should just outright ban soda. It's a colossal deadweight
dragging down our healthcare system, it's nutritionally pointless, and it's
not addictive enough to be worth trafficking.

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cft
It becomes a "system" when it stops being a marketplace. Then those systems
are ruled by socialist directives. USSR had no Coke either.

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xxpor
Then we should have become the USSR when they banned original Four Loko ~7
years ago. Oh wait.

