Assess the Potential Impact of Tax Policies on Soft Drinks Consumption

Countering the excessive consumption of carbonated and sugary drinks is pursued due to internal and external consequences in many countries of the world. Price change through tax tools is one of the most important of these policies, the success of which depends to a large extent on the position of beverages among the people of any society. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the potential impact of tax policies on beverages consumption, considering that in the new VAT law the rate is higher than the standard for beverages as a health hazardous commodity. To achieve this goal by seemingly unrelated regression method in the form of an almost ideal quadratic demand system and the use of combined data on the expenditures of Iranian urban households on four commodity groups from 2006 to 2016, the beverage demand function is estimated and then price and income elasticities is Calculated. The results show that beverages in the consumption basket of all deciles of urban households are considered as a product elastic and unnecessary (luxury). Also, the study of welfare effects using the criterion of compensating variation shows that increasing the tax rate does not have much effect on reducing the welfare of consumers and households in high-income deciles suffer the most welfare losses. Therefore, the implementation of tax policies provided for in the new VAT law can have a positive and significant effect on controlling the consumption of beverages.