Stuti: Promoting Responsibility
Alcohol. Fast food. Tobacco. All three of these words have a slightly negative connotation, and when consumed irresponsibly, can lead to devastating effects. A sin tax is the government’s way of trying to control the irresponsible usage of such products.
According to Investopedia, a sin tax is a tax on specific goods or services considered harmful or hazardous, including alcohol, fast food, tobacco, pornography, sugary drinks and gambling.
Despite claims that sin taxes take away from the freedom to buy what they want, when they want, without interference, sin taxes are ultimately a completely justified and acceptable practice.
It only takes a brief look to understand that all the items on which a sin tax is levied can be extremely detrimental to society.
NIH reported that each year, around 88,000 people die from alcohol related deaths in the US. A National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey found that obesity rates, bolstered by fast food, are at an all time high, affecting 18.5 percent of children and 40 percent of adults in 2016. The CDC explains that cigarette smoking causes almost one in five deaths in the U.S.
So how can we argue against a practice that helps mitigate these behaviors?
Sin taxes are effective in decreasing unhealthy behaviors, increasing public safety in the process.
According to the Balance, an online organization communicating financial information, when the federal government increased the tax on cigarettes by $.62 a pack (the average cigarette is around six dollars), teenage smoking fell by 10 percent and overall sales fell by 8.3 percent.
Similarly, the Consumer Report found that a tax on soda resulted in a 40 percent decrease in daily soda consumption and a 38 percent drop in total sodas purchased over a month.
Granted, paying a few extra cents can be annoying, but when the benefit of paying a few extra cents is increased human safety, that should always be a trade-off we are willing to make.
On top of this, sin taxes can generate money which our nation and individual states can use for better causes. In 2015, sin taxes raised $98.3 billion, which were used to help decrease debt, cover public health healthcare costs and even fund wars (as opposed to all citizens paying more to cover these costs).
Even though the government may be slightly restricting our freedoms, at the end of the day, the sin tax does nothing but protect us. We elected our government officials to represent us and make decisions that benefited us as a whole, and that’s exactly what the sin tax is doing.
The goods and services are not being banned, nor is their distribution being restricted. The people who desperately want to buy fast food or drink soda are going to do it despite the additional cost. But those few extra cents are a powerful reminder to curtail our less productive and often unhealthy desires and can make the difference between buying something or not, especially for younger adults who don’t have that much money to spend in the first place.
Because of this, sin taxes should not be seen as a restriction of rights but rather be recognized for what they are — an effective way to increase our society’s productivity and promote responsible behavior.
Ishani: Unnecassary Oppression
Sin taxes are rarely considered an issue in our world. In fact, many people do not even know of their existence. They simply accept the fact that if they want to buy something considered ‘harmful,' by no objective standards, they must pay for it at a higher price than required. And though it makes sense that we must be made aware that certain actions have consequences, no one should ultimately have the decision to dictate another’s consumption.
It is true that sin taxes can make one think twice about purchasing truly harmful goods, like cigarettes and alcohol. But things like fast food and candy? Really? These aren’t life or death goods or services, so why is candy being equated with cigarettes? This subjective definition of ‘harmful’ creates an unnecessary tax on goods that are simply not lethal or harmful in moderation.
Sure, these kinds of taxes teach us about gluttony and over-consumption, but since when is it the government’s job to propagate that for us? These kinds of matters are entirely ethical and have no place being mixed in with our tax system. By blurring the line between objective taxpaying and rectifying the moral issues of our generation, the government has wrongfully increased the say they have in our living matters. These kinds of decisions are not for authority figures to make but for us to make ourselves.
If we are oppressed into not indulging in our potentially harmful desires, we never truly learn the negative implications of them and we simply find other ways to satisfy them. Take, for instance, the Prohibition of 1920, banning alcohol across the United States. While it was an upstanding idea in theory, it backfired in more ways than one. The economy took a severe hit to this act, and it still couldn’t get the job done. This was often considered the peak of American alcohol consumption, often seen through speakeasies, an illegal store that sells liquor and other illegal activity. If we continue banning such universal, and admittedly harmful, goods, the outcome will not be as ideal as we may imagine.
Ultimately, this decision has stemmed from alarming consumption and its harmful effects. If we want to preserve the right to consume without judgment or punishment, the simplest way to do this is to simply consume cautiously. If we control ourselves, we take away anyone else’s need or ability to do so for us.
Credits:
Created with images by Alexas_Fotos - "rum alcohol after work" • Paweł Czerwiński - "Cigarettes" • Fabrice Thys - "Burger"