Sugar tax on dairy, soft drinks and juices, Chamber will choose from five options

NOS News•today, 1:41 PM

The House of Representatives will decide on a consumption tax on sugary drinks such as dairy, lemonade and fruit juice. This should lead to healthier purchases. The outgoing cabinet has developed five variants and presented them today.

For all five variants, the tax per type of drink is increased based on the sugar content. The more sugar, the higher the tax. The number of grams of sugar per 100 milliliters is taken into account. Chocolate milk is considered dairy, even though a lot of sugar has often been added to the milk.

In the first variant there are no exceptions. In the second variant, only mineral water is excluded. The third variant also excludes dairy and soy drinks with little sugar. In the fourth variant, pure fruit and vegetable juices are taxed low even if they contain sugar. And in the fifth variant, pure fruit and vegetable juices are also completely excluded.

The more exceptions, the more expensive the remaining drinks become because the tax is spread over them. For Red Bull, for example, this means that the drink will become 14 cents more expensive per liter in the first variant, and 27 cents in the fifth variant. Coca Cola Zero Sugar will become cheaper compared to now. 22 cents cheaper in the first variant, and 9 cents cheaper in the fifth variant.

The House of Representatives had asked the cabinet for this elaboration because varied taxation would encourage consumers to consume healthier soft drinks. The Health Council advises people to consume as little sugar as possible through drinks. It does not matter whether they are natural sugars or added sugars.

This sugar tax should replace the consumption tax for soft drinks that came into effect on January 1. That rose from almost 9 to more than 26 cents per liter, regardless of how much sugar it contains. Non-alcoholic drinks that are currently subject to consumption tax are lemonade (including syrup), fruit juice, vegetable juice, non-alcoholic beer, low-alcohol beer with 0.5% or less alcohol, other drinks with a maximum of 1.2% alcohol.

The consumption tax on mineral water was abolished because the cabinet sees it as a healthier choice. Specific dairy and soy drinks are currently also exempt from consumption tax, due to their high protein content. Even though it sometimes contains a lot of sugar. That previously led to discussion.

That discussion will take place again in the House of Representatives when the five variants are debated. It is difficult to say which variant will be preferred. The sugar tax cannot come into effect until January 1, 2026 at the earliest.