dlowan wrote:Hmmm - junk food here attracts a GST since the GST was introduced. Fresh food does not. There are some anomalies - and it sure makes it hard for the food purveyors sometimes.
I don't know if it has made a difference. Perhaps too early to tell.
We've had 'Value Added Tax' (VAT) here since the early 70's. Basically, it is charged on prepared foods (as well as services and most non-food goods) but not on 'staple foods' (and medicines, children's clothes etc).
VAT is therefore paid on cakes, chocolate, frozen pizza, alcohol etc, but not on dried pasta, rice, bread, vegetables, fruit, basic dairy products etc.
Where it falls short of encouraging healthy eating is that it is always charged on services (which includes restaurants). A salad in a restaurant therefore is taxed the same as a pizza in the same restaurant. A pre-prepared salad bowl in the chiller cabinet at the supermarket is also taxed, but the ingredients (if bought seperately) are not.
It was not introduced to encourage healthy eating, but as a nifty way for HM Government to raise a shed-load more tax income, and staples foods, medicine, children's clothes etc were only exempted to avoid unfairly punishing lower-income families
toomuch. It is currently charged at 17.5%.
