Posted on 01/13/2017 12:39:16 PM PST by oblomov
After driving up the cost of soda and other sugary drinks with a new tax, the mayor of Philadelphia is now trying to blame businesses for charging higher prices (and for the outrage those prices have generated).
Mayor Jim Kenney, who proposed the soda tax and championed its passage through city council last year, told reporters on Tuesday it's not the new 1.5-cents-per-ounce tax that's making it more expensive to buy a can of Coke in Philly. No, according to the mayor, those higher prices are caused by city businesses price gouging their customers in order to stir up opposition to the tax.
"They're gouging their own customers," Kenney said, KYW News reports.
To understand Kenney's reasoning, you have to know that the new tax technically is applied at the wholesale level. That is, the city is charging a tax on the transaction that takes place when a business, like a sandwich shop or grocery store, purchases soda (or the syrup used to make soda in a fountain) from a distributor. In the mayor's mind, it seems, distributors and retailers are supposed to eat the cost of the tax and continue selling their products at the same price as before the tax went into effect.
In the real world, those sandwich shops and grocery stores, of course, are adjusting the retail price of sugary drinks to make up for the added cost imposed by the tax. Some of them have posted signs to inform customers why drink prices have skyrocketed.
Kenney doesn't like that. He called those efforts "wrong" and "misleading" and suggested that it could be an extension of the expensive fight put up by soda companies, retailers, and even the city's Teamsters Union in a failing effort to prevent the tax from passing in the first place.
(Excerpt) Read more at reason.com ...
This mayor seems like a total buffoon.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
There’s no “seems like” to it. The idiot is an idiot and proves his idiocy every time he speaks.
Instead of just the tax, they are getting ready to get rid of the taxers.
Lefties don’t know when to leave well enough alone, sometimes.
errrrr...I think he meant “Tax-Gouging”
A democrat?......then he is a buffoon.............
[ In the mayor’s mind, it seems, distributors and retailers are supposed to eat the cost of the tax ]
Basic Liberal thinking is that the evil retailer should eat the cost, just as with Obama Care, hospitals and doctors were supposed to eat the costs....
Doesn't that almost double the price of a 67.6-ounce bottle of Coke? Even more it's a cheap store brand.
There’s about 68 ounces in a two-liter bottle.
1.5 x 68 = 1.02
It’s not gouging. It’s math.
Because passing the cost of a product onto the consumer is price gouging.
And these clowns wonder why they live in “food deserts.”
Vote for it and you just might get it.
In fairness to the Mayor, the Pennsylvania Legislature did the same thing (impose a tax on the wholesale level) on gasoline. Apparently in the delusional belief it would not get passed on.
And the Legislature is solidly Republican.
He doesn’t think the tax should be passed on.
80% of the people are economic illiterates. That’s how we get these politicians.
Tax gouging.
“1.5 x 68 = 1.02”
Don’t forget the sales tax applies to the increase.
I go to Philly a few times a month on business. The city has enormous potential that is just rotting and rusting away. But it’s been that way for probably 60-70 years.
Funny, I’ve never heard a government official reference ‘Tax Gouging’.
Yep, tax gouging...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.