It says ‘health’ on the label – but there’s a tax rise inside!

Michael Jäger, President of the Taxpayers Association of Europe (TAE), has strongly criticised the planned sugar tax: “People aren’t stupid. They can see that whilst it’s labelled as being about health, in reality it’s just a tax increase.” According to a Civey study commissioned by the TAE, involving 5,000 participants on 11 September 2026, 71.8 per cent believe that the government is primarily interested in generating additional revenue.

Nor is the promised health benefit convincing. According to the study, a price increase of 25 to 30 per cent would lead only 22 per cent of people to consume less sugar. Others would continue to buy as before or switch to products that are also high in sugar. Jäger: “The tax makes life more expensive, but it doesn’t automatically make people healthier.”

The levy would hit people on low and middle incomes particularly hard. 74 per cent of the workers surveyed reject such a price increase. “Those on low incomes feel the pinch of every extra cent. This tax is not socially responsible; rather, it places a burden on precisely those who already have to count every euro twice,” explains Jäger.

86 per cent of those surveyed want any revenue generated to be used exclusively for preventive healthcare. Jäger therefore calls for: “The federal government should scrap the sugar tax and focus on public awareness and nutrition education. If it goes ahead anyway, not a single cent must be siphoned off into the general state budget.”

Jäger also sees the results as indicative of other tax-raising proposals, such as those on alcohol and tobacco. Here, too, he is highly critical of those in political office: “People are being led up the garden path, as they are deliberately made to believe that higher taxes on tobacco, alcohol or sugar will improve public health. But these are not earmarked levies; rather, they are general additional revenues, the use of which is then decided by the Chancellor of the Exchequer.”