tax on “sugar-sweetened beverages, wine, beer and liquor

[darrels joy]

Smokers, diet-soda drinkers spared? By: Carrie Budoff Brown May 18, 2009 06:33 PM EST

Smokers and diet-soda drinkers would escape higher taxes under a new proposal for how to pay for President Barack Obama’s sweeping health reform overhaul. But if you drink alcohol or sugary drinks, you might have to pay up under a plan released Monday by the Senate Finance Committee. The committee proposed slapping an excise tax on “sugar-sweetened beverages” for the first time, and imposing a uniform tax across wine, beer and liquor, which are currently taxed a different levels. Wealthy individuals or workers with expensive health plans may have to pay taxes on their employer-provided insurance for the first time. Health savings accounts and flexible spending accounts could also lose some of their tax benefits. These options were among dozens of recommendations put forth by the committee ahead of a private meeting Wednesday where senators will discuss how to fund a health care fix that could exceed $1 trillion over 10 years. “Reforming the system will likely require an upfront investment, but I’m confident it will pay dividends in the future for our health, our economic competitiveness, and our federal budget,” Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said in a statement. “The bottom line is that we can’t afford not to act. Without health care reform, health care spending will reach $4.4 trillion by 2018. These policies lay out a wide variety of options for making that investment.” The debate over financing was expected to be among the contentious. Concerned that the tax proposals could cause alliances to fray, Baucus's office called trade associations before releasing to the document to say it would not be the final word on who takes a hit. They were told it was an options paper, and necessarily indicative of the direction Baucus and the rest of the committe would head, according to a person familiar with the process. But within hours of the committee releasing the options, at least one trade group stepped out in opposition. The Distilled Spirits Council said a higher alcohol tax would be a “prescription for disaster for the hard-hit hospitality sector.” “Forcing hundreds of thousands of waiters, waitresses, bartenders and busboys into the unemployment line is not the way to reform our nation’s healthcare system,” the Council said in a statement. Beer and wine would face the largest increase. Per ounce of alcohol, liquor is now the highest-taxed form of alcohol. The committee proposed boosting the current tax rate, and applying the same rate to all alcohol, although small wineries and breweries would receiving some exemptions. The beverage tax would apply to drinks sweetened with sugar, high-fructose corn syrup or other “similar sweeteners.” “Sugar-sweetened beverages under the proposal would include a variety of carbonated and uncarbonated beverages, such as non-diet soft drinks, fruit and vegetable drinks, functional drinks such as energy and sports drinks, iced teas and iced coffees, and flavored milk and dairy drinks,” the committee paper states. “The tax would not apply to beverages sweetened with non-caloric sweeteners.” The financing options paper is the third produced by the committee over the past month. Each one – the first focused on changing the way health care is delivered, and the second looked at expanding access to health care – is designed to ease the process of producing a health care bill by June. Baucus released the paper with Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the ranking Republican, but it included the usual caveat: Just because they included a spending cut or tax hike in the paper doesn’t mean they both support it. The committee combed through Medicare and other areas of the U.S. health system to find savings, and looked at limiting the federal tax subsidies for health care, which topped $190 billion in 2007. The paper did not disclose estimates on how much money each proposal could bring in. Obama proposed $634 billion in funding options in his budget document. His plan to cap itemized deductions on mortgage interest and charitable contributions as 28 percent drew strong opposition on Capitol Hill, and the committee simply listed it as an option at the end of the paper. It did not provide a detailed analysis of the president’s proposals. The committee’s embrace of a cap on the tax exemption for employer-provided insurance could put Obama in a tough spot. During the campaign, he repeatedly criticized Republican John McCain for offering a similar plan. Employer health insurance is currently exempt from taxes. Senators are considering several options, including taxing benefits for individuals earning more than $200,000 a year, or $400,000 per couple. Another would limit the tax-free status based on the value of insurance plan.

© 2009 Capitol News Company, LLC

http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.c...AD48A8BD3B3A70

[reconeil]

Just what America now needs for: "Stimulating The Economy"!
"Applying same rate to all alcohol" and/or TAXING beer & wine like hard booze will CERTAINLY be a great help??? "In-your-dreams"?

Yeah, sure? Dictating that public pay 3-4 times the actual value for beer & wine just like liquor & cordials (cigarettes also in NJ, NY & Northeast) have longtime been so taxed,...should greatly help The Economy & "We The (Schnooks)" and/or: "We The People"???

ONLY morons could ever believe such political dictates economy helpful, since TAXING ANY PRODUCTS 3-4 times actual value SOLELY: "Stimulates", helps-out & further bloats or increases Big Brother Governments (Local, State & Federal),...and NO OTHERS.

Well,...so much for lordly phonies posing as Our Representatives.
Wonder when they shove this latest tax down our throats as all the other dictates abounding, same Lords & Masters (Mistresses also) will have the similar: "AUDACITY" of pervertly saying (the American deceptive political norm) of:............"It's The Will of The People"and/or truly some joke.
Yeah, sure again & my a--!!!

Also,...taxing soft drinks to supposedly: "Stimulate The Economy" is just as LORDLY DUPLICITOUS & LYING!

Neil

[Boats]

Doesn't it makes its own when you are making it?

[82Rigger]

I don't know how the hell anybody figures "smokers have been spared".

Cigarettes have gone up approx $2.00 PER PACK since the beginning of March.

[QM3steve]

Hell, I can make my own beer, wine and brandy's. I can grow tobacco. Papers are cheap. Why not go that route?

[SuperScout]

Not that you haven't been warned by ol' SS hisownself, but this is just another step in the long march to the Nanny State. (Some will, no doubt, see the thinly veiled reference to the Long March that Mao Tse Dung and his henchmen took in China, leading to the Communist China that we all know and love today, right?) So now, Big Brother is shaking his finger in our faces, tellingus how bad we are to make our own decisions, and then tellingus that He's going to tell us what we can eat, drink and not be merry. Sweet! Hope all you liberals and socialists and other bed wetters are happy as a pig in sh*t, because that's what all this governmental interference smells like.