(IRS)Contrary to the claims of advocates, America's first soda tax was not a success. But all the hype leaves out some important context: Congress passed a national soda tax 100 years ago. [Coke and Pepsi concede that maybe soda is bad for you]The first soda taxes had nothing to do with health. Nowhere has that been more obvious than in Philadelphia, which is currently in the midst of a lawsuit over its soda tax. Thorndike, the tax historian, sees this as evidence of a core flaw in the soda tax: They’re too political, he wrote in 2009, and thus can’t provide a “resilient fiscal foundation.”But Mehrotra, of Northwestern, said he wouldn’t be so quick to draw conclusions from the century-old soda tax.

Source: Washington Post April 06, 2017 14:23 UTC