Thank you Boulder (Home of Jared Polis!) for proving with your sugar tax the hypocrisy of imposing so-called sin taxes in order to stop bad behavior, and how to write a rigged rebate law.
The two-penny tax on a fluid ounce is expected to rake in $5.2 million this year. It’s so much money the city is actually considering giving some ITALICS of it back to those who were taxed.
But only the excess above $3.8 million a year. The rest will still go to advocacy groups with nice-sounding names to preach to the rest of us sinners how to be healthy.
Ironically, the trend away from sugary drinks was already in evidence before Boulder decided to levy the tax in their never-ending pursuit to be the leftists capitol of the U.S.
We are informed by Colorado Watchdog that Boulder cannot tell us if the tax actually worked because the city is “not engaged in any direct research related to a correlation between the tax and reduced consumption.”
And because it’s Boulder and this is how liberals think, an election will have to be held first to ask voters if bevarage distributers should get their money back, or if Boulder should give it to more activists to spread the word that good health is good.
Why would the money be returned to distributers instead of taxpayers? Because that’s how the law is rigged.
Here’s how Curt Osborne, city tax audit manager, explained the racket:
“We recognize that a distributor may choose to pass the expense of the tax onto retailers, restaurants and other businesses who sell sugar-sweetened beverages. Likewise, retailers may choose to pass any expense they incur from the distributor through to their customers. If and how a retailer chooses to pass the expense along to a consumer can take form in a variety of ways,” Osborne told Watchdog.
Of course the cost of doing business was passed on to consumers. Despite Boulder’s desire to be a communist state, capitalism is still king and that’s how it works — goods are sold for profit, not loss.
What’s amazing — even for Boulder — is they have so much disdain for taxpayers, they’d rather make a half-hearted attempted to give money back to the dreaded beverage distributors than to the consumers who paid for it.