Sugary drinks are in the crosshairs of senators who voted to increase the soda tax, introduced in 2012 for the first time. As a reminder, this tax was increased for the first time in 2018. Last year, it allowed the government to raise revenue of 443 million euros, which could reach double in 2025, after the planned increase.
This measure will mainly target products with a high sugar content, such as fruit juices, lemonades, syrups, but also animal milk and vegetable milk. “We can clearly see that there are eating habits that are created over time. Families must be discouraged from purchasing these very sugary products », indicated to France info Elisabeth Doineau, the senator author of this proposal.
An opinion shared by the Minister of Health, Geneviève Darrieussecq. “I think we have a very worrying epidemic of type 2 diabetes and obesity, with a cost for Health Insurance. The soda tax should not be eliminated, we need this marker because soda is sugar cubes in a large glass. We really need to regulate this,” she said, according to Public Senate
As a reminder, the managers of three large food groups, namely Dominique Schelcher of the Coopérative U group, Cécile Béliot of BEL and Bruno Vaquette of Sodexo, had proposed to the government to increase taxes on sweet products. In their report, the leaders announced their plan to increase VAT on processed products. The money raised will be used to finance a support system for the purchase of healthy food.
Up to 35 cents higher on sweet products
Concretely, the increase in the soda tax will be proportional to the quantity of sugar contained in the drinks. Thus, the least sweet will increase by 4 cents on average. For those that contain high amounts of sugar, the increase can reach 35 cents per liter. It is therefore a question of a much greater increase than that previously voted by the deputies, which indicated an improvement of 3.5 and 28 cents respectively.
The soda tax will be doubled for manufacturers on products containing more than 8 kg of added sugar, reaching 35 euros per hectoliter, compared to 17.70 euros currently. The largest increase will concern the intermediate level, i.e. products between 5 and 8 kg of added sugars, for which the tax will reach 21 euros, compared to 7.30 euros currently. Finally, the least sweet products, namely those containing less than 5 kg, will undergo a minimal increase, going from 3.79 euros per hectoliter, currently, to 4 euros.
The Senate also voted for a new progressive scale of the tax on sweeteners, which will be 4.50 euros per hectoliter for drinks containing less than 120 mg per liter. For those who exceed this limit, the tax will be 6 euros per hectoliter.
