Do “sin taxes” work? • Hacker News Board

Re: Do “sin taxes” work?

#21

Post by rnd0 » Sun, Aug 12, 2018, 9:17 PM UTC

nrb wrote: post #12

kulix425 wrote: post #3

sure they do, if you are ok with the government making decisions about you and your life FOR you.

"The government" is people. Are you arguing that society, collectively, should not establish a system of rules that reflects their social norms?

>"The government" is people.

In theory.

In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice.

But in practice...? It's the same with the theory of "the government is the people" and how that works out in practice.

Re: Do “sin taxes” work?

#22

Post by rosser » Sun, Aug 12, 2018, 9:19 PM UTC

Sir_Substance wrote: post #18

stcredzero wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if there was solid data decisively showing that there were substantial externalities effectively being paid for by the public? The answer to that, is that the power to determine this is too dangerous. There do have to be rules and conventions, or there would be chaos. Since such power is dangerous, the exercise of it should be kept to a minimum. Then the question arises as to what that minimum is.

>What if there was solid data decisively showing that there were substantial externalities effectively being paid for by the public? That's always a risky argument to engage in. Everything has externalities, whether it's "sinful" or not. For example, there are a lot of externalities that the public pays for in order to allow everyone to drive a car. Probably round 30% of the driving public should not be driving a car…

I'm not following how sin taxes entail a bifurcated society. Can you elaborate on that?

Re: Do “sin taxes” work?

#23

Post by jopsen » Sun, Aug 12, 2018, 9:22 PM UTC

esturk wrote: post #11

I feel the article was really complaining about the tax being inefficient than ineffective. The article answers with: yes, they are effective but inefficient because it's a blunt policy that impacts everyone including people that occasionally travel and drink alcohol. Often, economic policies don't take into consideration the complexity in a patchwork approach in implementation. Yes, it's more efficient result wise,…

And the claim of low efficiency also seemed to lack some numbers. While an alcohol tax certain hits the occasional drinker, it hits the alcoholic far harder because the alcoholic buys and consumers far more alcohol.

That's said, probably still an inefficient and blunt instrument. And yeah, it carries a lot of overhead.

Re: Do “sin taxes” work?

#24

Post by alkonaut » Sun, Aug 12, 2018, 9:25 PM UTC

kulix425 wrote: post #3

sure they do, if you are ok with the government making decisions about you and your life FOR you.

Well that's really just about the balance of liberal vs not. Given a certain overall tax level (which level is acceptable depends on your political worldview), one might argue that it's better to tax things that cause unwanted externalities such as environmental problems, or health issues. The latter is especially important in cases where healthcare is publicly funded. It might feel like government is micromanaging me if they tax my soda, but I really don't see how it's so much worse than taxing my paycheck. Given a certain fixed amount of taxes, I'm more than happy to see as much as possible of it be "sin" taxes to be honest.

Re: Do “sin taxes” work?

#25

Post by robertAngst » Sun, Aug 12, 2018, 9:25 PM UTC

yason wrote: post #19

From the article: Sin taxes are blunt policy instruments. People who only have the occasional drink are not taking on any great health risks, yet they are taxed no differently than serious alcoholics. But surely the alcoholics are taxed way more than people who have an occasional drink because of the sheer volume? If you drink or smoke a lot, the taxes do accumulate into significant amounts annually. Policymakers sho…

But this doesnt answer 'does it work'?

Less drunk driving + less bad decisions?

The cost of alcohol makes it so when I drink, I drink.

Re: Do “sin taxes” work?

#26

Post by Sir_Substance » Sun, Aug 12, 2018, 9:31 PM UTC

nrb wrote: post #12

kulix425 wrote: post #3

sure they do, if you are ok with the government making decisions about you and your life FOR you.

"The government" is people. Are you arguing that society, collectively, should not establish a system of rules that reflects their social norms?

>"The government" is people.

A relatively small group of people, governing a huge group of people. The granularity gap is crazy. It's very hard for me to get exact numbers, but it seems[1] that the US federal government employs around 2 million people, and the US population is ~328 million. That's 164 people to be governed per employee, and most of those employees are not involved in establishing sets of rules.

It is quite beyond the governments capacity to adjust it's rules to handle an individuals personal circumstances or the changing nature of society, which is why there are so many unjust judicial rulings and so many outdated laws still on the books.

Governments should stick to making only the rules which _cannot_ be handled at any scale below the millions. Power lines need to be a matched voltage nation-wide. Railway gauges must be the same nation-wide. Petrol from any petrol station should work in any car, and burning it should not be poisonous at any density of cars found anywhere in the nation. These are the things a government is for. Tie-breaking multiple valid solution arguments on an epic scale. It doesn't matter that much what voltage we pick, just that we pick _a_ voltage, singular.

Governments are quite incapable of managing smaller-scale decisions. For example, it turns out the cannabis oil is pretty amazing at suppressing fits in people with epilepsy, and MDMA might turn out to be the solution tens of thousands of PTSD sufferers have needed for decades. We've at least suspected both of these things for around half a century. Unfortunately, both substances are regulated by a government so large it is literally not capable of making criminal possession exceptions for universities so that these effects can be studied. Lives have been lost due to this scaling problem.

Governments are a great tool for certain problems. For other problems, they are like trying to scrub food off a porcelain bowl with a jackhammer.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_civil_se...

Re: Do “sin taxes” work?

#27

Post by jopsen » Sun, Aug 12, 2018, 9:31 PM UTC

GarrisonPrime wrote: post #6

Of course, as far as governments are concerned whether such taxes reduce "sinful" activities is irrelevant, so long as they increase tax revenue and allow politicians a way to improve their public images.

Well, for those of us who attempts participate in democracy, by writing/calling politicians, supporting NGOs, voting and so forth, YES, it actually matters whether it works.

I'm sure it's not a solution for all problems. As the article says it's a blunt tool. But given that they do work, I'll keep encouraging my politicians to not let our alcohol and tobacco taxes slip below that of neighboring countries.

Given that we're already paying the overhead, we might as well get some effect by cranking up the taxes :) hehe

(well, maybe there's other downsides, but it's thought worth considering)

Re: Do “sin taxes” work?

#28

Post by Sir_Substance » Sun, Aug 12, 2018, 9:32 PM UTC

rosser wrote: post #22

Sir_Substance wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What if there was solid data decisively showing that there were substantial externalities effectively being paid for by the public? That's always a risky argument to engage in. Everything has externalities, whether it's "sinful" or not. For example, there are a lot of externalities that the public pays for in order to allow everyone to drive a car. Probably round 30% of the driving public should not be driving a car…

I'm not following how sin taxes entail a bifurcated society. Can you elaborate on that?

I certainly can, I did so in simple, easy to understand language with examples right here in this post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17746413

Re: Do “sin taxes” work?

#29

Post by abathur » Sun, Aug 12, 2018, 9:34 PM UTC

Sir_Substance wrote: post #18

stcredzero wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if there was solid data decisively showing that there were substantial externalities effectively being paid for by the public? The answer to that, is that the power to determine this is too dangerous. There do have to be rules and conventions, or there would be chaos. Since such power is dangerous, the exercise of it should be kept to a minimum. Then the question arises as to what that minimum is.

>What if there was solid data decisively showing that there were substantial externalities effectively being paid for by the public? That's always a risky argument to engage in. Everything has externalities, whether it's "sinful" or not. For example, there are a lot of externalities that the public pays for in order to allow everyone to drive a car. Probably round 30% of the driving public should not be driving a car…

One person's "consequences" have minimal impact when spread across society--but when we talk about society-level action, we're never just talking about "one" person, but are instead talking about ratios.

Sure, it doesn't impact us much if one person drinks themselves to liver failure. But if we're talking about 0.1% or 1% or 10% of people drinking themselves to liver failure by 50, we eventually have to start making hard tradeoffs.

It might seem ideal from a maximal-freedom perspective to let anyone who wants to drink themselves to liver failure do so, but it's worth thinking ahead to whether those tradeoffs increase or reduce the maximal-freedom-per-capita.

Re: Do “sin taxes” work?

#30

Post by alkonaut » Sun, Aug 12, 2018, 9:37 PM UTC

lend000 wrote: post #14

stcredzero wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if there was solid data decisively showing that there were substantial externalities effectively being paid for by the public? The answer to that, is that the power to determine this is too dangerous. There do have to be rules and conventions, or there would be chaos. Since such power is dangerous, the exercise of it should be kept to a minimum. Then the question arises as to what that minimum is.

That's a different story. Externalities should be taxed to the extent of the cost of the externality to society (if not outright banned, which is not practical for most common externalities like running a combustion engine, breathing, etc.). But pure sin taxes like soda/gambling/recreational drug taxes, where an individual is only affecting themselves, are effectively the government and busybody supporters of the pol…

> where an individual is only affecting themselves

This depends on political context. In much of the western world outside the US (and partially in the US) healthcare is a publicly funded service. If you pay for your neighbors healthcare, then your neighbors obesity is an externality.

> or cigarettes, on the other hand, there are two potential externalities to tax.

And again here: my neighbors lung cancer is on my taxes, so effectively the only fair cost of cigarettes includes all treatment from all smoking and of course all lost tax revenues from the sick smokers who couldn't work etc. That's a lot more money needed than to cover just second hand smoke as an externality.

And even if you don't factor in public healthcare, an unhealthy population is an externality although not as immediately obvious.