Overview
- Presents four key cases studies on tobacco, marijuana, alcohol, and soda, and argues against the conventional wisdom in taxing these "sins"
- Encourages a rethinking of paternalism in governance and argues for better policymaking in order to address real harms that exist
- Provides a riposte to current literature on behavioral public policy and nudge theory
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Table of contents (7 chapters)
Keywords
About this book
Conventional wisdom dictates that those goods which are said to cause harm or impose costs on society deserve a special tax. For centuries, governments have levied these "sin taxes" on alcohol and tobacco, but the list of taxable sins has now grown to include soda and marijuana, with calls to impose further taxes on plastic bags, meat, and even robots and carbon. Contrary to what experts and policymakers tell us, many of these alleged sins impose very little, if any, cost on society, and the harms that do exist can be minimized without resorting to tax. What follows in this book is a discussion of four case studies—on tobacco, marijuana, alcohol and soda—which make the case against the conventional wisdom in taxing these "sins", before concluding that when it comes to taxing sin, it is time for governments to forgive—and forget.
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Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Taxing Sin
Authors: Michael Thom
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49176-5
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Political Science and International Studies, Political Science and International Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-49175-8Published: 01 December 2020
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-49176-5Published: 01 December 2020
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: VII, 186
Number of Illustrations: 1 b/w illustrations
Topics: Popular Science in Political Science and International Relations, Public Policy, Public Finance, Behavioral/Experimental Economics