Sugary drinks tax - report

The Grattan Institute's report, A sugary drinks tax: recovering the community costs of obesity, strongly supports the imposition of an excise tax of 40 cents per 100 grams of sugar on all non-alcoholic, water-based drinks containing added sugar. "Such a tax would increase the price of a two-litre bottle of soft drink by about 80 cents, raise about $500 million a year, and generate a fall of about 15 per cent in the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages."

The report provides obesity statistics and costings in Australia, and cites other countries which already have, or are planning to have, a tax on soft drinks - France, Belgium, Hungary, Finland, Chile, the UK, Ireland, South Africa, and parts of the US.