EVALUATING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF SUGAR TAX TO COMBAT SOUTH AFRICAN’S SWEET TOOTH

Abstract

The former Minister of Finance, Pravin Gordhan, introduced the proposed sugar tax legislation for South Africa in the 2016 Budget Speech to address obesity in South Africa. The World Health Organisation (WHO) encourages more healthy behaviour and supports the implementation of sugar tax. Sugar tax is the tax levy on sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs), such as soft drinks and energy drinks, and although the South African legislature has not yet formalised such into legislation, lessons can be drawn from foreign practices. An exploratory research study was conducted to explore how Finland, Hungary and the United Kingdom implemented their sugar tax legislation. These countries make use of the same tax base, namely the threshold approach, as the proposed sugar tax base for South Africa. South Africa’s proposed sugar tax will be measured against the four maxims of a good tax policy (equity, certainty, economy and convenience). With this evaluation as benchmark, the main objective of the study is to determine whether the proposed sugar tax rate in South Africa will be effective and if the proposed sugar tax rate will be in line with the selected countries discussed in the paper. In order to reach the objective, a partially mixed sequential dominant status design was followed. This study finds that the four maxims are not met and the proposed sugar tax legislation require much needed amendatory action by the legislature. Also, the proposed sugar tax rate of 2,1 cent per gram of sugar content in excess of 4 grams of 100 millilitre is the second highest sugar tax rate when compared to the three selected countries but may not be enough to combat excessive SSBs consumption as consumers may choose cheaper alternative SSBs options.

Keywords

• South Africa, Sugar tax, Sugar-sweetened beverages, World Health Organisation