I feel sin taxes are immoral but easy to implement against a minority of poor people who don't have the means or numbers fight back.
However I have seen these sin taxes applied to areas where this is not as true. For example in Canada marijuana is taxed quite heavily. But marijuana isn't something that causes much physical harm or physical dependence like alcohol. So it's odd that it is also so highly taxed. Especially edible versions of it that don't have the associated smoking risk.
But I think overall as a whole in societies like this it can make sense. In places like America though maybe sin taxes don't make as much sense. You're paying a lot for your habit but are you getting any extra benefit out of it? If you need extra healthcare that is going to be on your insurance on your pocket.
I would compare the sin taxes also to the carbon taxes we have implemented in Canada. You pay an extra tax at the gas station on your fuel. The idea is that those taxes paid are earmarked for climate change initiatives. Now is that tax money actually being spent appropriately? Who knows. But it does make sense in some sense to disincentivize destructive activities and use the taxes to offset the cost of those activities.
I'd recommend doing some digging here, I've seen many claims that such folks actually end up being responsible for lower lifetime healthcare expenditure due to earlier death and I'm sure myriad other factors
Someone who lives longer simply has more time alive and thus more time in the country where they may require medical care. But I don't think that means they are the same burden as someone who has a shorter life span but requires a lot of unnecessary care due to the unhealthy choices they made during their life.
I have expressed this in another comment, but unhealthy foods are taxed here as well. Things like fruits and vegetables are not. However even with the taxes processed foods still end up being more cost effective. But I think that is a separate problem of its own.
I am not necessarily sure the argument that they have a shorter lifespan is a good one. Like sure someone may use more if they live 20 years longer, but if you compare two 60 years olds where one is healthy and the other is a heavy smoker it's almost guaranteed that the heavy smoker has costed society a lot more. Is it far to compare that same 60 year old smoker who just died to a 90 year old? That 90 year old got 30 more years of life. Sure they may have ended up costing more in healthcare in those 90 years, but they also alive 30 more years. To me that seems like a positive thing to strive for.
There are a lot of things that people do which fall in the same category. Unhealthy eating. Extreme sports. Unsafe sex.
Should we tax them all?
For the other two it's a bit harder to directly tax those activities, but taxing indirectly it's definitely feasible: private health insurance and life insurance already have different pricing depending on amount of exercise, lifestyle, previous conditions, etc.
Extreme sports are nowhere near as popular as things like smoking, drinking, and unhealthy eating. And extreme sports still have the same taxes other material objects would have. If I go mountain biking there is a lot of expensive gear you're paying for which would be taxed at 15% here. Injuries from mountain biking at most usually result in some kind of musculoskeletal injury. They are not usually long term problems and don't involve anywhere near the amount of resources something like a cancer patient would require.
An alcoholic may drive drunk and injure someone else, they may have to go through multiple detox programs, they often end up in the hospitals for days, etc... And they also don't have the same benefits an extreme sport can have. Someone who does a lot of mountain biking is going to be a much healthier person. They'll require less doctor visits and overall are also probably mentally more healthy.
Really not sure what specifically unsafe sex means. What would be the "sin tax" there? They aren't purchasing something?
We are talking about taxing people's unhealthy purchases. Not taxing someone because they engage in an activity.
Without (intentionally, anyway) taking any other position at issue here, I'm not sure this is a cromulent comparison. Processed foods are also more calorically dense, heavier per dollar, and ultimately less expensive per meal, even factoring in the tax. We can try to think about it like a policy lever, but if it's still less expensive than the alternative, it kinda feels like rent-seeking, given that eating isn't a habit one can just give up.
You are right that often processed foods are cheaper, but that doesn't seem relevant to the sin tax is it? Maybe I am misreading what you are saying, but the idea is that the healthy foods don't get taxed and the unhealthy ones do. The fact that the unhealthy foods may still end up being cheaper doesn't really change that much? If they taxed the healthy foods it would just get that much worse.
I think we may be talking past one another because you're likely from a country that prioritizes its citizens' health in a way that we in North America don't. "Eating shittily for primarily economic reasons" isn't a purely North American phenomenon, of course, but I note that in parts of Eastern Europe, carrots and potatoes are practically free.
Unfortunately though in Canada produce can still be cheap. We do subsidize produce in a lot of ways though. For example my relative has a farm. It's a relatively small farm, but he also pays almost nothing in taxes because of farm subsidies and exemptions he gets. Without those kinds of government benefits farming often wouldn't even be economical at all. However I believe even animal production is like this. In fact I believe animal production often gets even more subsidies than produce based farm operations in Canada.
However, I personally don't view a lot of these taxes in the same way as sin taxes. I view the taxes on unhealthy foods as a way to try and slightly subsidize the healthier foods. Is it 100% effective? Nope, but it does help to reduce their costs a bit. But you're right that this often can end up screwing over the poor people more than other groups.
I feel like this is a broader problem though. It seems like a good chunk of government policies screw over the people who are already the worst off. For example: if a millionaire gets a speeding ticket for going 20 over it barely is a blip on their radar. But if someone who is poor living paycheck to paycheck gets hit with one it can greatly impact them. And they can barely even afford to try and fight it in court because that may mean taking unpaid time off from work. This is just one example of where it seems like society is setup to feed off the middle and lower classes to keep the upper class prospering.
It doesn't help that a lot of our politicians are part of that upper class and don't understand how different of a world it can be in these other classes.
But for those that it doesn’t, it means they’re spending more of their disposable income on their addiction and not things for the rest of their family.
There is no sin tax for very wealthy people with very bad habits, like traveling with their private jets.
On the other hand as a smoker I am 100% in favour of the ban on smokes in public places.
Maybe more bans and less sin taxes could be a better option, I'm not sure myself, but I can see why someone could consider them borderline immoral.
Fine if stuff has a naturally high price, everyone can't have a Tesla or a Ferrari, but if something is deemed to be morally OK (and therefore legal), it's not the government's place to then penalising people for spending their money on it.
If taxes from cigarettes and alcohol were ring-fenced purely for treating smokers, prevention campaigns & alcohol anonymous programmes etc then I might be in favour.
But for example — supposedly treating smokers costs the NHS £2.5bn per year (https://twitter.com/UKHSA/status/887261639720001536), but the duty on cigarettes brings in £9.9bn (https://www.statista.com/statistics/284329/tobacco-duty-unit...).
For alcohol — the overall budget of the NHS is ~£130bn currently. This article (2016) estimated that alcohol related cases cost the NHS 3.6% of its budget (https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2016/jan/22/alcoho...) which, assuming the same now would be £4.7bn today, but alcohol duty brings in £12bn (https://www.statista.com/statistics/284336/united-kingdom-hm...).
Even accounting for other costs (e.g. accidents), the government is making a huge return on allowing these products to be sold, so it seems hypocritical to then punish people for using them, especially if people want to enjoy them in moderation.
Wealthy people certainly can afford to smoke and drink all they want, it's just the poor people who aren't allowed with sin taxes. Just doesn't sit right with me.