I agree with your premise that this should apply to candy and cookies.
I also like your idea of keeping things simple. The hard part, as always, are the edge cases. If the tax is associated directly with sugar in some manner than diet sodas won't be taxed. Another possible albeit silly argument is why not tax sugars in fruit?
Note: Im a software engineer. Not a dietician. I really don't know a detailed difference between artificial sugars and natural sugars or how our bodies process them.
> If the tax is associated directly with sugar in some manner than diet sodas won't be taxed.
Running with this idea, there'll eventually be a federal conversion table where any given chemical would be translated to their mass in sugar. From there, tax calculation's simply:
sum((sugar_conversion_lookup[ingredient] * mass) for ingredient in product) * tax_per_gram_of_sugar
> Another possible albeit silly argument is why not tax sugars in fruit?
Because total sugars and added sugars are not the same thing. It makes more sense to tax added sugars because they are clearly worse, and it strains Medicare/Medicaid budgets.
Sugars are indeed the same thing whether they came from a fruit or were added (up to the type of sugar). And where labelling restrictions are stricter, it's common to use grape or apple juice to increase the sugar content of drinks and still be allowed to write "No added sugars" on the bottle.
I took "tax sugars in fruit" to mean a tax on a whole banana or other whole fruit based on its natural sugar content. It's well-known that the fiber in fruit makes eating the whole fruit much better than drinking fruit juice.
Adding grape juice or apple juice to a snack or drink would still be considered an added sugar on the nutrition label under FDA guidelines[1].
The reason they do that is often to make sure "sugar" isn't the first ingredient in the ingredient list, which have to be listed in decreasing order of weight[2].
Note that the ingredient list and the nutrition facts label are two different things.
I also like your idea of keeping things simple. The hard part, as always, are the edge cases. If the tax is associated directly with sugar in some manner than diet sodas won't be taxed. Another possible albeit silly argument is why not tax sugars in fruit?
Note: Im a software engineer. Not a dietician. I really don't know a detailed difference between artificial sugars and natural sugars or how our bodies process them.