Kenney said he believes most customers understand the reason for the tax and he believes it doesn’t need to impact them as much as it has.
“They’re gouging their own customers.”
Among retailers, only Shop Rite has responded, saying they are passing the tax along because it greatly increases sweetened beverage prices and it wants customers to know.
Philadelphia passed a ludicrous sweetener tax on both natural and artificial sweeteners. Retailers passed along the tax to consumers just like they do with every tax. Many of them also listed the sweetener tax as a separate line item on receipts so that consumers could see why their frappe suddenly costs so much. Retailers certainly don’t want to take the blame for huge price increases when they aren’t even getting the money. The Mayor is upset that retailers are doing this.
What does he expect them to do? Does he expect retailers to just add the sweetener tax to where it calculates the sales tax? That would be misleading. Does he expect them to eat the cost? Why would they do that? Also, if the retailers ate the cost, wouldn’t that negate the health benefits of encouraging people to drink non-sweetened beverages by artificially inflating the price of sweetened ones?
It’s just hilarious to see liberals so shocked and dismayed when the consequences of their tax increases have the predictable effect.