Alcohol tax should be raised
By Lethbridge Herald on March 22, 2024.
Editor:
In the Herald’s Feb 27 edition there was a letter from Peter Watts of the Canadian Malting Barley Technical Centre complaining about proposed tax hikes on beer. This is a terrible approach. Taxes on beer should be raised significantly. Beer is a carcinogen. Most Canadians want to see lower rates of chronic disease.
The most effective tool by far which has been used to lower rates of cancer and heart disease around the world has been through higher tobacco taxes by governments on tobacco products lowering demand. The same can happen with alcohol.
Also, with lower rates of chronic disease there are lower taxes than would otherwise be required to fund health care.
How much is a life worth?
Ken Kyle
Lethbridge
8-7
enough with taxing people’s choices because there are those that find fault with them. skiing, rock climbing, hiking, hockey, football, cycling…all come with risks. so do big gulps and everything loaded with manufactured “sugars”.
the problem with taxing personal choices is that it undermines one’s right to their personal choices; by making certain personal choices too expensive, personal choices are effectively made about as unattainable as if they were illegal. using public health or any other means of coercion to control one’s right to their body is unacceptable.
on the note of taxation, under our present rigged system, if corps and the utmost wealthiest individuals were made to pay their fair share, we would have plenty of public funding. however, it is they that actually influence tax laws such they are actually writing them.
a fairer approach would be one that gets far too little in the way of discussion: no income tax, but a flat .5% tax on every financial transaction, which would provide massive sums to public treasuries everywhere. search this title, or copy paste the link that follows
Introducing a 0.05% Financial Transactions Tax as an Instrument of GlobalbJustice and Market Efficiency
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/asian-journal-of-international-law/article/abs/introducing-a-005-financial-transactions-tax-as-an-instrument-of-global-justice-and-market-efficiency/1CDB3A38FB1DDD729664B9DA70519BB4