sugary drink tax is back

I was honestly surprised when I first saw this news item.

According to Ynet, Minister of Finance Betzalel Smotritch has decided to "unfreeze", or renew, bring back, the tax on sweetened drinks. Smotritch will do it slightly differently than before, as it was introduced under Lieberman's instruction - it will only be on sugary drinks and will not include diet drinks like Coke Zero, and it will also not be applied to sweet drinks such as grape juice that is used for religious ceremonies (ie kiddush on shabbos and holidays).

In my opinion diet drinks should be included as the sweeteners and chemicals used to make it drinkable in place of the sugar are probably equally or more dangerous from a health perspective (from what I have read, may not be accurate). 

Why was I surprised? Because they made such a big deal about canceling the tax on drinks that Leiberman had imposed, turning it into an anti-haredi tax, as if only Haredim would be affected by it because only Haredim drink sweet drinks. Clearly not true but that is what it was turned into, and the Haredi parties made this a central part of their campaign before the last elections and added it to coalition agreements. So now Smotritch is bringing it back? Wow. 

I suspected initially this might be revenge, somewhat, for Minister of Interior Moshe Arbel's insistence on holding municipal elections on January 30, against the requests of Smotritch due to the negative impact it will have on National Zionist candidates (among others) with a high percentage of candidates and staff fighting in Gaza or drafted to other areas for reserve duty.

Another option that crossed my mind was simply the need for money due to the adjusted budget for the war and the expected significant shortfall.

Now I see, according to Kikar, this was actually done in coordination with the Haredi parties.

According to the article, the Haredi parties were ok with adding the tax on the drinks as long as it wouldnt include grape juice and diet drinks, and that it would include an informational/educational campaign targeting the Haredi community to explain the damage caused by the sugary drinks.

I am not sure why the educational campaign needs to only target the Haredi community, but that seems to be the agreement. Plenty of people who have access to information on their own, such as via the internet, do not bother looking for it. I think everyone would benefit from an educational campaign about this, just like they always did from campaigns regarding smoking, drugs, alcohol and the like.

It is noted that if the talks with the Haredi representatives do not pan out and they decide to oppose the tax, Smotritch will have to reconsider because of the coalition agreements. As of now they are justifying this by saying they initially had to get rid of Lieberman's anti-haredi tax but now that this was accomplished done they can talk about finding a way to get the community to consume less sugary drinks.

So the same tax is back, with some adjustments (which probably could have been accomplished back then too had they been willing to talk) but now it is not anti-haredi.

Whatever gets you through the day, as they say.

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