The Democrat controlled Baltimore City Council proposes a 150% TAX on all soft drinks.

Members of the City Council will hold a hearing on Wednesday to consider a 150% bottle tax increase.

Such a massive local tax increase on bottled beverages such as soft drinks not only means higher costs for the consumer, but lost jobs as well. This tax hike, if passed, could very well result in layoffs at the Canada Dry bottling plant in Baltimore County and its distribution center in Glen Burnie at a time when the local economy desperately needs job creation and can ill-afford needless job destruction

Unfortunately, this has happened before. When the original 2-cent bottle tax was enacted in 2010, Pepsi found that it was no longer cost-effective to make soft drinks at their facility and was forced to lay off 77 workers as a result. In 2011 employers called on the city to repeal the tax, to no avail. What’s that they say about the definition of insanity?

Baltimore residents, urge your representative on the Baltimore City Council and tell them NO NEW TAXES ON BOTTLED DRINKS.

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Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake dropped her long-expected bill to raise the city container tax on the Baltimore City Council yesterday, but its passage is not assured and if it does pass, it might take a while.

The bill, CC12-0033, would raise the container tax from two cents to five cents per eligible bottle, and would kill the sunset clause of the original bill and make the tax permanent.

The bill, CC12-0033, would raise the container tax from two cents to five cents per eligible bottle. Rawlings-Blake has said she intends to use the proceeds of the tax to fund some much-needed and long-deferred school renovation and reconstruction.

The container tax does not apply to milk and milk substitutes such as soy milk, fruit juices, and containers that are two liters or larger.

Rawlings-Blake says the tax is critically needed to help pay for up to $2.8 billion in deferred maintenance to the city’s 204 school buildings. but the introductory copy of the bill does not assign a purpose for the revenue raised from the tax.

The Mayor’s Office says it will use a combination of teacher pension savings, cash raised from the bottle tax, and the city’s cut from its planned slots casino to raise $23 million. The city would use that fund to leverage $300 million in municipal bonds for school reconstruction.

Rob Santoni, comptroller of the family-owned Santoni’s Supermarket, says the container tax has been very costly to his business.

Santoni compared 2011 to 2009, the year before the container tax was passed, and said sales were down $500,000.

He also said that the soft drink and snack food conglomerate PepsiCo gave him sales statistics for 11 independent groceries in the city, and they were down 92,000 cases in 2011.

“These are big groceries like ours, not corner stores, all independently owned in the city,” said Santoni. “So you can imagine what is happening if you factor in Safeway and Giant and the rest of the chains.”

The container tax hike bill landed in the Taxation, Finance and Economic Development committee, which is chaired by the independent-minded Carl Stokes of the 12th District. Stokes has said his committee will not hold a hearing for the bill until at least May, a statement that caused some consternation at City Hall.

But Stokes says that’s the earliest it can happen because Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke’s Education Committee won’t hold a hearing on the needed school reconstruction till April 25, and next year’s budget is not yet ready.

“I have always said I didn’t want to hold a bottle tax hearing isolated from the bigger issues, schools, youth programs and the rest,” said Stokes. “And we don’t get the budget till close to May.”

Of course we are going to have a hearing,” said Stokes. “It will be a fair hearing in committee and we will decide up or down…but we won’t hear the bill until we have the clear and full picture.”

Santoni says the mayor is looking to raise the container tax because it is easy. “Our industry is the low-hanging fruit in this situation,” he said. “We’re an easy target.”

Since the tax is collected at the distributor level, collecting a tax and auditing a few beverage distributors is far easier than most other tax increases the mayor could try to impose. “The city goes to Coke and it goes to Pepsi, and they write a big check for all of us,” he said.

Santoni also said that most big groceries, including his, do not pass the cost of the tax along to customers. “We are absorbing 48 cents [on a case] right now, which is break-even for us,” he said. “How are we going to absorb $1.20?

Baltimordor can’t get all that money for the skrewels, because the city drove most of the taxpayers out some years ago.

Maryland “Freak State” PING!

Even cigarettes, whose health effects could justify high taxes, don't have taxes at 150 percent.

Oh yes they do. In fact the most recent tax increase by obama on tobacco was a 2,300% increase - from $1.05 per pound to $25.00 per pound.

I'd like to see litigation to determine whether a punitive tax on a disfavored but legal item is legal. It seems to me if the purpose is not revenue, but punishment, then this law violates due process.

You will never see such litigation on tobacco products, because they cover their rearend by claiming it is for revenue because it will force so many to quit the lost revenue has to be made up. circular logic, but exactly how they get away with it.

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