Minimum price on alcohol, Tax on fatty food.

Frank the tank

What a load of b0ll0x. Just another excuse to tax ordinary people even more. I would be more inclined to go along with the argument of its to save people from themselves and the country loads of dosh in NHS/policing costs,IF. VAT was removed from all kinds of health and fitness equipment health club/gym memberships etc.

singleton

Frank the tank wrote:

IF. VAT was removed from all kinds of health and fitness equipment health club/gym memberships etc.

Go on - start a petition...... http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/

verylonglegs

You can run round your local park for free.

GiantMike

You can use several thousand calories ranting on here.

Joking aside, let's make a determined effort to get everybody fit. Tax booze, fatty foods and poor lifestyle choices out of the reach of the average person and reward people who pass an annual 'test of healthiness'. We'd all be better off, and I wouldn't have to squeeze between the fatsters in York filling their faces with pies and cakes when they should be out jogging or cycling. Just a thought.

Frank the tank

Singleton wrote:

Frank the tank wrote:

IF. VAT was removed from all kinds of health and fitness equipment health club/gym memberships etc.

Go on - start a petition...... http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/

Have done. Awaiting the confirmation which can take up to seven days. :roll:

GiantMike

Frank the tank wrote:

Singleton wrote:

Frank the tank wrote:

IF. VAT was removed from all kinds of health and fitness equipment health club/gym memberships etc.

Go on - start a petition...... http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/

Have done. Awaiting the confirmation which can take up to seven days. :roll:

If VAT on gym membership is reduced to zero, how much of a saving do you think will get passed on to the gym member? In the short term, probably all of it, but prices are based on what the market will bear and these will slowly creep up so that the VAT bonus goes to the gym.

Also, do you think that more people will use the gym if they are 16.67% cheaper? I can't imagine the average drunken chunky-bones deciding that they will squeeze their fat @rse out of the door and get fit because the David Lloyd gym membership is a bit cheaper. The majority of any benefit will be felt by those already motivated to be fit, in the same way that the tax on fatty food and minimum pricing on booze will, in the majority of cases, disproportionately affect those who consume large quantities of unhealthy products.

So, carrot and stick. But I think you'll find that the stick gets better results, especially as the policy is aimed at those that don't routinely eat carrots [see what I did there ]

Le Commentateur

For many (most?) people exercise is a lifestyle thing rather than a health one.

Wirral_paul

Frank the tank wrote:

I would be more inclined to go along with the argument of its to save people from themselves and the country loads of dosh in NHS/policing costs,IF. VAT was removed from all kinds of health and fitness equipment health club/gym memberships etc.

Health and fitness equipment............... like a bicycle??

daviesee

While I agree with the policy in principle, or at least can see the thinking behind it, I don't think it will change anything one iota. Apart from the Government coffers.
Fatties and alkies save the nations financial crisis. :twisted:

Pross

No problem with either IF the money was ring fenced and put into health and exercise initiatives.

Tom Butcher

I don't have a problem with a minimum price on alcohol - so long as it's reasonable - i.e. it doesn't affect the alcohol I buy.

Seriously at face value I don't see the need for litre bottles of strong cider at bargain prices - but then others may not see the need for bottles of wine at less than a tenner which definitely would impact on me. There's a danger that alcohol becomes the new smoking - prices jacked up hugely so we end up paying £5 a pint down the local.

team47b

Here we have VAT on food, 6%, 12% and 23%.

Fresh fruit and veg is 6%
Wine is 12%
processed food is 23%

It's about priorities.

(They put 6% VAT on books! not such a great idea, tax on reading)

rick_chasey

If you're currently buying alcohol that's cheaper than the minimum price then you need to take a good hard look at yourself in the mirror.

daviesee

Tom Butcher wrote:

There's a danger that alcohol becomes the new smoking - prices jacked up hugely so we end up paying £5 a pint down the local.

When the anti-smoking measures were announced @1996 I predicted to the smug non-smokers that alcohol would be the next target. I stand by that. The recommended units are dropping and the anti-alcohol propoganda increasing.

The next question is - If everyone gives up smoking, drinking and driving cars like the Government would like to pretend it wants, how would the Country be funded? That's a whack of revenue that won't be covered by health savings. In fact, people living longer would put extra burden on pensions etc.

PS:- I agree with Rick. If you are buying the cheap cr@p, are you buying it for the taste or to get off your head?

rick_chasey

daviesee wrote:

The next question is - If everyone gives up smoking, drinking and driving cars like the Government would like to pretend it wants, how would the Country be funded? That's a whack of revenue that won't be covered by health savings. In fact, people living longer would put extra burden on pensions etc.

Heaven forbid the gov't does something that helps people's health over tax revenue! :shock:

DrKJM

Rick Chasey wrote:

If you're currently buying alcohol that's cheaper than the minimum price then you need to take a good hard look at yourself in the mirror.

True, but markets being what they are there will be upward pressure on all prices to differentiate products. I'd hope that the bargain cider bottles would just disappear but I suspect that wouldn't be the case.

There is of course another threat to health and exchequer if they bring in markedly different tax regimes in a single market. Booze cruises become more viable - and the French economy benefits - and black marketeers have an even bigger incentive to bring in cheap or dodgy products. Tackling this issue in such a simplistic way is great for headlines but bl**dy useless at solving the problems.

GiantMike

Rick Chasey wrote:

If you're currently buying alcohol that's cheaper than the minimum price then you need to take a good hard look at yourself in the mirror.

I've had a look in the mirror, and then a longer harder one, and I couldn't find the answer. What price should I be paying for alcohol? As a single mum with 4 kids and a huge Sky TV bill, I can only afford a single bottle of Lidl 'Party Slag' once a week. Should I be saving up for a bottle a Chateau Neuf De Posh twice a year?

What's the Rick 'rule of thumb' for quality vs alcohol pricing?

rick_chasey

GiantMike wrote:

. Should I be saving up for a bottle a Chateau Neuf De Posh twice a year?

rick_chasey

DrKJM wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

If you're currently buying alcohol that's cheaper than the minimum price then you need to take a good hard look at yourself in the mirror.

True, but markets being what they are there will be upward pressure on all prices to differentiate products. I'd hope that the bargain cider bottles would just disappear but I suspect that wouldn't be the case.

There is of course another threat to health and exchequer if they bring in markedly different tax regimes in a single market. Booze cruises become more viable - and the French economy benefits - and black marketeers have an even bigger incentive to bring in cheap or dodgy products. Tackling this issue in such a simplistic way is great for headlines but bl**dy useless at solving the problems.

Do minimum prices push the prices up of much more expensive stuff? I'm not sure, but I couldn't tell you.

Booze cruise is a minority occupation. Doesn't amount to anything significant.

styxd

Rather than a tax on the food and alcohol, there should be a tax on how fat the person is. Perhaps a quarterly check up at a body fat centre. And its here that your body fat percentage is measured, the higher the value, the more tax you pay. Problem solved.

Frank the tank

I know there is no chance of health/fitness products etc being VAT exempt. I just wish that politicians for once in their lives be up front, they don't really give a flying f*ck about our health, in fact they'd be overjoyed if we'd just die as soon as we became unfit for work.

Any proposed hoick in the cost of cheap booze or fatty food is purely to put dosh in GO's exchequer.

pinno

Thatcher wanted a return to Victorian Values. Well she has finally got them.

Varying rates of VAT on food.
VAT on just about everything else
Council Tax
Business Tax
Corporation Tax
Fuel Duty - domestic
Petrol/Diesel duty
TV License
Income Tax
Duty on Alcohol
Duty in Ciggs/tobacco

All in a society with an ever increasing gap between the have's and the have nots - Victorian enough for you Mrs T?
A few of them I agree with but successive governments refuse to tackle the in-ordinate disparity between the rich and the poor.
They refuse because it would not keep the vested interests happy, take the amazon case recently and all the tax havens I o M, Guernsey, Jersey and the idiotic non-dom status which lets £millions£ slide through. If they would really tackle the disparity in the taxation system bith for individuals and corporations, we would probably be able to ride this recession and enjoy the quality of public services akin to a country supposed to be 1st world.

t.m.h.n.e.t

Frank the tank wrote:

What a load of b0ll0x. Just another excuse to tax ordinary people even more. I would be more inclined to go along with the argument of its to save people from themselves and the country loads of dosh in NHS/policing costs,IF. VAT was removed from all kinds of health and fitness equipment health club/gym memberships etc.

The underlying problem is obesity

<flamehat on> A person who has chosen to lead a life of crappy diet,tv dinners and the only exercise being going to the fridge,deserves to pay extra on the choices they make. This is not because they are overweight/fat or obese but because the health risks of being so big can only lead to other complications which will cost a fortune to treat. I don't understand why healty,active people should have to pay for a landwhales treatments.
(There are people who genuinely can't help weight gain (through steroids or meds for other things) of course.)

With that,taking VAT off fitness equipment or gym memberships won't suddenly create mass hysteria and fully booked out gyms. There may be a small trickle of new memberships but on the whole it probably wouldn't make a dent in the problem. The health and fitness industry is corroded with bad prefab diets that cash in on peoples ignorance, Did you know that Dr Atkins was 260lbs or so when he died? This being the man who wrote TWO (after the first one failed monumentally) books on his ketogenic,highfat diet. There is no incentive in the UK for the majority of people to get up and active,a few £ saving on a swiss ball isn't to make as much an impact as being told by your GP that if you(in some cases) put on more weight in order to qualify for a gastric band,FREE on the NHS then he will recommend you. I can't recall the source but obesity was estimated to cost somewhere in the region of £500m a year.

2012 Obesity study wrote:

62.8% of adults (aged 16 or over) were overweight or obese
30.3% of children (aged 2-15) were overweight or obese
26.1% of all adults and 16% of all children were obese

It is estimated that more than one in 20 people in the UK has diabetes (diagnosed or undiagnosed).

There are 2.9 million people who have been diagnosed with diabetes in the UK (2011).2 By 2025, it is estimated that five million people will have diabetes in the UK.3 It is equivalent to:
- more than 400 people every day
- over 17 people every hour
- around three people every ten minutes

It is estimated that there are around 850,000 people in the UK who have diabetes but have not been diagnosed

There are about 29,000 children and young people with diabetes in the UK. About 26,500 of them have Type 1 diabetes and about 500 have Type 2 diabetes. There are a further 2,000 children and young people in the UK with diabetes whose diagnosis is not known

</flamehat>

I do agree though,foods containing a certain amount of saturated fat should be taxed and fitness equipment should be cheaper as a result,but it won't happen

rhext

I thought it was a minimum price not a tax....

And even if it was a tax, given that it's the government's duty to provide a wide range of public services, and given that those services have to be paid for somehow, I'd much rather they raised the cash by optional taxes than compulsory ones. After all, I don't have to pay VAT on a takeaway pasty, but have little choice about income tax.

Bottom line: overconsumption of alcohol causes problems in society and imposes a significant cost on the treasury. Data gathered over many years shows that as cost-per-unit goes down consumption goes up as do drink-related problems. Seems to me only sensible to address this by reversing the fall in cost-per-unit: it'll actually mean that we end up having to pay less tax overall because we won't have so much clearing up to do around town centres, nor will we have as much liver-disease to treat.

...or are you one of these people who think that the guvverment maliciously raise taxes for the sole purpose of 'swelling' a set of 'coffers' which I guess must sit under westminster. Presumably so that demonic treasury officials can occasionally go down into the basement to rub their hands and gloat about how much cash they've managed to accumulate......

Frank the tank

rhext, tell me of a single government that has not introduced new methods of extracting tax out of the masses.

As for over consumption of alcohol, restrict its outlets and don't let supermarkets undercut pubs. Reintroduce licensing hours. If I or you fancy a kebab it won't do us any harm so why should we pay more for it?

I appreciate alcohol abuse is an issue but why is the only way forward is to price it out of peoples reach. People with a drink problem will always find a way of affording it the only people who it will hurt are responsible drinkers, which ironically are not the people the legislation is aimed at.

ilm_zero7

styxd wrote:

Rather than a tax on the food and alcohol, there should be a tax on how fat the person is. Perhaps a quarterly check up at a body fat centre. And its here that your body fat percentage is measured, the higher the value, the more tax you pay. Problem solved.

yep - great idea.

rhext

Frank the tank wrote:

rhext, tell me of a single government that has not introduced new methods of extracting tax out of the masses. .

Can't think of one. But on the other hand, I can't think of one that hasn't introduced as many tax cuts as it reasonably can for the same masses while struggling to keep the books at least roughly in balance. There certainly haven't been any governments in living memory raising taxes for the purposes either of personal gain or accumulation of 'government' wealth. Do you seriously imagine that a group of people who depend on popularity for their jobs would do something as unpopular as raising taxes unless they genuinely believed that the cuts they would have to introduce otherwise would not be even worse? My advice: if you think you're paying too much tax, then don't campaign for tax cuts, campaign for spending cuts instead - if those happen taxes will take care of themselves.

Frank the tank wrote:

As for over consumption of alcohol, restrict its outlets and don't let supermarkets undercut pubs....

What an excellent idea... but how???? I know, maybe if we introduced a minimum price per unit of alcohol, supermarkets would have to stop selling 3 litre containers of White Lightening for less than the price of coca-cola, but the price of a pint in a pub would be completely unaffected....

Frank the tank wrote:

I appreciate alcohol abuse is an issue but why is the only way forward is to price it out of peoples reach. People with a drink problem will always find a way of affording it the only people who it will hurt are responsible drinkers, which ironically are not the people the legislation is aimed at.

You see, people always say that, but the fact that alcohol related violence, injuries and serious disease seem increase reliably as relative alcohol price decreases, and vice versa, over hundreds of years would tend to indicate that while people with a drink problem may always find a way, there are fewer people with a drink problem if the price is higher.....

Jez mon

Frank the tank wrote:

rhext, tell me of a single government that has not introduced new methods of extracting tax out of the masses.

As for over consumption of alcohol, restrict its outlets and don't let supermarkets undercut pubs. Reintroduce licensing hours. If I or you fancy a kebab it won't do us any harm so why should we pay more for it?

I appreciate alcohol abuse is an issue but why is the only way forward is to price it out of peoples reach. People with a drink problem will always find a way of affording it the only people who it will hurt are responsible drinkers, which ironically are not the people the legislation is aimed at.

I heard the other day that Duty is higher for pubs than for supermarkets? Doesn't make sense to me at all.

I also don't think licensing would help, especially amongst students, we'll just start drinking earlier, or drink quicker!

I don't know what you can do to get rid of alcohol abuse. For one thing, when does it start? Are we only talking about the most hardened drinkers, or is it everything down to the people who comply 100% with the govt. guidelines? Because I think a minimum price could potentially slow down the drinkers of many who currently drink a bit too much/have a binge every week/few weeks.

Fundamentally the minimum price is an extremely blunt tool. But does education help? I know that drinking is bad for you, doesn't stop me getting off my face every now and then, smoking has become more socially unacceptable, that's why it's slowed down, if that happens to drinking, we'll see a reduction in binge drinking, but atm, we're pretty far away from that, amongst young people, being sober is more socially unacceptable than being paralytic!

DavidBelcher

T.M.H.N.E.T wrote:

Frank the tank wrote:

What a load of b0ll0x. Just another excuse to tax ordinary people even more. I would be more inclined to go along with the argument of its to save people from themselves and the country loads of dosh in NHS/policing costs,IF. VAT was removed from all kinds of health and fitness equipment health club/gym memberships etc.

The underlying problem is obesity

<flamehat on> A person who has chosen to lead a life of crappy diet,tv dinners and the only exercise being going to the fridge,deserves to pay extra on the choices they make. This is not because they are overweight/fat or obese but because the health risks of being so big can only lead to other complications which will cost a fortune to treat. I don't understand why healty,active people should have to pay for a landwhales treatments.
(There are people who genuinely can't help weight gain (through steroids or meds for other things) of course.)

With that,taking VAT off fitness equipment or gym memberships won't suddenly create mass hysteria and fully booked out gyms. There may be a small trickle of new memberships but on the whole it probably wouldn't make a dent in the problem. The health and fitness industry is corroded with bad prefab diets that cash in on peoples ignorance, Did you know that Dr Atkins was 260lbs or so when he died? This being the man who wrote TWO (after the first one failed monumentally) books on his ketogenic,highfat diet. There is no incentive in the UK for the majority of people to get up and active,a few £ saving on a swiss ball isn't to make as much an impact as being told by your GP that if you(in some cases) put on more weight in order to qualify for a gastric band,FREE on the NHS then he will recommend you. I can't recall the source but obesity was estimated to cost somewhere in the region of £500m a year.

2012 Obesity study wrote:

62.8% of adults (aged 16 or over) were overweight or obese
30.3% of children (aged 2-15) were overweight or obese
26.1% of all adults and 16% of all children were obese

It is estimated that more than one in 20 people in the UK has diabetes (diagnosed or undiagnosed).

There are 2.9 million people who have been diagnosed with diabetes in the UK (2011).2 By 2025, it is estimated that five million people will have diabetes in the UK.3 It is equivalent to:
- more than 400 people every day
- over 17 people every hour
- around three people every ten minutes

It is estimated that there are around 850,000 people in the UK who have diabetes but have not been diagnosed

There are about 29,000 children and young people with diabetes in the UK. About 26,500 of them have Type 1 diabetes and about 500 have Type 2 diabetes. There are a further 2,000 children and young people in the UK with diabetes whose diagnosis is not known

</flamehat>

I do agree though,foods containing a certain amount of saturated fat should be taxed and fitness equipment should be cheaper as a result,but it won't happen

Good post. In some cases HMG, or indeed anyone else trying to knock peoples' health into shape, is fighting a losing battle. I despair of some of my work colleagues who bemoan being in bad shape yet drive the 2 miles and back to work each day (I could walk that, for pity's sake), do little physical activity, and hold out in the hope of some "miracle" effort-free route to weight loss....added to which one of them recently described a grapefruit as "something you only eat if you're on a diet". As if all of that wasn't bad enough, in some cases I'm talking about staff working in the biological sciences; you'd think they'd have some sort of clue about how the body works and how to keep it in good order. :roll:

David

Frank the tank

I pay my tax PAYE so no chance of not paying my dues, those who don't well, think of a number. I believe governments are always endevouring to extract more tax out of us, else there would just be income tax and that would be the end of it. They do try to amass a fund so come election time they give some of it back as an enticement.

As for cutting back on spending, that's a different debate.

EKIMIKE

Pross wrote:

No problem with either IF the money was ring fenced and put into health and exercise initiatives.

This is the only really coherent solution.

If you're going to tax people on how fat they are then you have to introduce an arbitrary cut of point to avoid rewarding anorexia. Anything arbitrary in nature causes problems. Moreover two 'arbitraries' (minimum price/tax on how fat people are) don't make a right.