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Hi, everyone and welcome back to Happy Hour, 欢迎回来酒馆. Hi, 安澜.

Hi, Lulu, hi, everyone.

So what are we going to talk about today?

Well, I notice in your 外刊, you were talking about sin tax?

Yeah. 罪恶税. We were talking about Europe.

So, I thought maybe let's talk a little bit more about that. Everyone likes sin and nobody likes tax. So hopefully you might find something of interest in this episode.

Yeah, if you haven't really been following our 外刊 course, we need to give you the general background of what sin tax is. If you have bought our 外刊 course, then this will be a listening review for you.

Yeah.

So first of all, what is sin tax?

A sin tax is a tax added to goods or services seen as harmful to individuals or society.

I.e., the sinful act. 所谓罪恶税, 就是一般来说被认为对人或者对社会不太好的一些行为, 抽烟喝酒这些东西.

Yeah, precisely.

But it's not just that, it doesn't just stop at smoking and drinking. We're gonna get into that. Obviously, it's called sin tax because they are seen as moral blemishes, shall we say? Moral sins.

For example, cigarettes and tobacco, alcohol, sugary drinks.

Sugary drinks?

Oh yeah, it causes obesity, you know, if you drink too much, if you drink too many sugary drinks, it does affect your health.

Yeah. But you don't have to, I mean, I drink a coke once maybe twice in a month. Why should I pay higher taxes?

Well, it's more about the people that drink a lot more than that. But also things like gambling.

Yeah, well, gambling I can understand.

And sometimes junk food or even nowadays as people are more aware of the environment, carbon emissions.

Carbon emissions, 就是碳排放, I understand, junk food, I think it's the same about like obesity and such, right?

Yeah.

So today we're gonna get into why government would use sin taxes, how they use it, the real life examples. And we are going to share with you the arguments in favor of sin taxes and the arguments against it.

So in the future, if you want to get into the discussion of sin taxes, which mind you, in China, we are going to see probably more of that down the line. So if you want to talk about that topic in the future, you have more expressions and opinions. All right.

So first of all, let's get into the details of why government would use sin taxes. First of all, obviously is to discourage what the government sees as harmful habits.

Yeah. So for example, smoking. It's difficult to ban smoking completely because people always can say they have freedom of choice, they can choose to smoke or they can choose not to smoke. It's ultimately their own health, its their own body.

So we're not gonna tell you what you can smoke or not. We're just gonna put heavy tax on it.

Yeah. And it's up to you whether or not you want to pay that tax or not.

The other reason I would definitely say is financial, because if you have too many of these sinful...  “sinful activities”  or “acts” or “habits”, you are probably going to end up in worse, let's say, financial or medical situations where then the government will have to pick up the pieces or pick up the tab.

So that's one of the main arguments is that people who smoke or people who drink excessively, they're the ones that probably going to need more health care in the future.

So let's get into each of these things being taxed in the whole category of sin tax.

The first is cigarette, like you said, I don't know if you guys know this, I mean, I'm not a smoker, but in China I've seen cigarette boxes, it does say smoking is harmful, 吸烟有害健康, but it’s usually not that big prints, 那个字的号并不是特别大, I think in Europe you are legally required to have half of its cover saying smoking kills or have really nasty picture of a smoker’s lungs, that to gross you out, right?

Exactly. Smoking advertising is banned in the UK.

Yeah, same here, same in China.

Also smoking packets, most of it is taken up with messages such as like smoking kills, smoking is dangerous for your health and also some very graphic, nasty pictures of what it does to your body.

But when these don't work, sin tax. How expensive? I know you're not a smoker either, but do you know how much a pack of cigarette costs?

It can cost over￡14?

One pack, 20 cigarettes, ￡14?

Yeah.

How can people even... I still see a lot of smokers in the UK.

They just spend their money on cigarettes and most of that is tax.

Most of that is tax. I would assume that because, we're not even talking about very like premium or high end cigarettes, just normal pack of cigarettes.

Yeah. And smoking rates have dropped as prices have increased.

Imagine that.

Yeah. But one of the issues obviously nowadays is vaping has become more popular.

就是电子烟. Is vaping not being taxed?

I don't think it's taxed to the same extent as cigarettes and tobacco.

I know a lot of countries are trying to come up with new policies to tax vaping.

Yeah. That's the thing because it's so new. It's still somewhat unregulated.

Yeah. So that was smoking. What about alcohol?

Alcohol taxes are quite high in the UK, particularly for spirits.

Spirits means stronger alcohol.

Whiskey, vodka, gin. And people think, okay whiskey, because...I admit it, I like a whiskey and I do really enjoy a nice whiskey. One of the things that people think about is that whiskey is a very high end product, because it costs a lot of money. But most of that is actually tax. To produce whiskey is actually very, very cheap.

You talk about there's heavy tax on alcohol or on whiskey in the UK, but do you know like in countries in Scandinavian countries, like Sweden? That's Swedish, right, the Absolut Vodka? I think that was a Swedish brand.

So you would think usually buying that brand in its home country would be cheaper, which usually is. But in that particular situation is actually more expensive to buy Absolut Vodka in Sweden because the price dropped, but the tax went up. I think the tax doubled the amount of the actual cost of the alcohol.

It's not just there. For example I buy whiskey in China because it's cheaper than buying it in the UK. Not even just for duty free, but even if you go on京东or 淘宝, it is still cheaper than in the UK.

So even including all of the, I don't know, import cost and delivery fee.

It's still cheaper.

It's still cheaper, because we have a lower tax, we also do have tax just not to that extent, not to that extent yet.

But Scandinavia is a special case. Because in countries such as Sweden and Iceland, there are very strict laws about the sale of alcohol. So there are government shops that are only opened at certain times of the day.

Yeah. It looks like a drug dispensary.

You will, yeah. And these shops, they’re normally only open during the day. So for example, if you want to have a drink, then you have to really plan that you want to drink, it’s not a case of, oh, I fancy a beer, I'm gonna go downstairs or to the convenience store and pick one up. It's like no. If you want a beer, if you want to drink you have to really plan.

And I always remember when I was at university I went travelling a little bit around Scandinavia and I was in Finland to see a friend of mine. I got on the ferry from Finland to Estonia which is about maybe 2 or 3 hours. And I was amazed there were so many Finnish people who were so drunk and they were carrying so many bottles of alcohol. I even saw kind of like someone pushing a bottle of alcohol that was pretty much the same size as a small child. And I was absolutely amazed that's because Finland has that same regulation, so basically everyone goes to other countries to buy or get drunk and then bring it back to Finland.

Yeah, they do have very high taxes on alcohol, the only thing you can get at regular supermarkets would be very, very light beer. To a drinker that would be basically not even alcoholic.

And also you talk about buying alcohol across borders. In the United States because each states would have different regulations, so in some states alcohol is significantly cheaper. So the drinking habits would be different and also people travel to buy.

Yeah.

So we have drinking, we have smoking, and also gambling. I mean, gambling ,we can just very quickly go through because gambling, to tax gambling, I understand the logic. But it's not just casino, it's also lottery.

Lottery, so lots of lotteries are run by the state.

对, 像博彩就国家的那种博彩, 也就是我们买什么体彩什么的. That's also heavily taxed.

That is also heavily taxed and a lot of the proceed they go into local projects.

But there's also something called sugar tax or soda tax. This is when countries add tax to sugary drinks like Coke, Sprite, Fanta to fight obesity.

Yeah, and diabetes.

Diabetes, 糖尿病. For example, you guys have a heavy sugar tax, right?

We have it on industries. I'm not sure so much about the individual, there is like... I know Scotland I believe has that, but in the UK, there's been a push for companies to reduce the amount of sugar in their drinks. Because I don't think it's so much for food now, because sugary drinks is one of the leading causes because if you consider that for example, people drink coke all day long, and I know friends of mine who would literally drink like 2 liters of coke a day.

Do you know why? I think it's because scientifically I've read more than one article on it. Sugar is actually quite addictive.

Yeah, It is.

The more you consume sugar, the more you want it. Therefore, obviously, if you think about it from the government's perspective, if you consume lots of sugar as an individual, you have a much higher possibility of becoming diabetic, getting diabetes, and by which time you will need a lot more medical resources compared to a healthy person.

Yes.

So it's all public health management. And also obviously obesity in itself can be very costly.

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文稿校对：Jenny

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