The Poverty Effects of a “Fat-Tax” in Ireland

David Madden ()

No 201303, Working Papers from School of Economics, University College Dublin

Abstract: To combat growing levels of obesity, health related taxes have been suggested with taxes on foods high in fat or sugar. Such taxes have been criticised on the basis of their regressivity and potentially adverse impact upon poverty. This paper analyses the effect of such taxes on a range of poverty measures and also examines the effect of a revenue-neutral tax subsidy mix with a tax on unhealthy food combined with a subsidy on more healthy food. Using Irish expenditure data, the results indicate that taxes on high fat/sugar goods on their own will be regressive but that a tax-subsidy combination can be broadly neutral with respect to poverty.

Keywords: Poverty efficiency; Consumption dominance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-acc, nep-agr, nep-pbe, nep-pke and nep-pub
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http://hdl.handle.net/10197/4268 First version, 2013 (application/pdf)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ucn:wpaper:201303

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