Does an increase tax effect your behaviour?

Asked by Lightlyseared (34906

) March 14th, 2008

In the UK we’ve just had a budget. There was an increase in tax on alcohol and cigartettes, the idea being to discourage doing unhealthy stuff.
Do you think it works or would it be better to offer incentives to promote healthy behaviour such as going to the gym for example?

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2 Answers

I live in Chicago and we also have high taxes on cigarettes and liquor too. I haven’t seen people quit smoking because of the tax or quit drinking. I also don’t believe that increasing taxes on cigarettes and liquor lowers consumption. Its more of way to collect more revenue for the city and local governments.

-R

robhaya (999

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Well when the public pays for the health care costs associated with smoking and drinking (eg. Canada, UK) you’ve basically got to tax them because those people drain the money out of the system when they get heart disease, diabetes, cancer, etc.

paulc (2924

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