Meanwhile in Seattle - Week 7

Week 7 (October 2018)

---

Welcome to Meanwhile in Seattle. In this series I post images and write about anything related to what's going on in Seattle, Washington and the surrounding area. It's a chance for you to catch a glimpse of the daily life out here. Sometimes these posts will be general to all of the area and sometimes it may be more personal, like what I did on a weekend out here. Either way, I hope you enjoy seeing a different perspective on this area that I call home.

---

The Sweetened Beverage Tax of 2018

The state of Washington doesn't have an income tax but there are a ton of sales, excise and property taxes to make up for it.

For example, at the beginning of the year Seattle began a new tax on sodas and soft drinks, known as the sweetened beverage tax (Ordinance 125324). This tax was not designed to be on people buying these drinks, in other words at the consumption end but on distributors. So it's a kind of excise tax but there were no protections placed on the consumer end.

The City of Seattle was asked simply, "Can distributors increase their prices to retailers to pay for the tax?" To which they responded,

"The ordinance does not prohibit distributors from increasing prices; that is a private business decision. The ordinance does not prohibit a business from passing on the expense of this tax however the business deems appropriate."

In other words, Seattle knew full well that this tax would be passed onto consumers and obviously it has.

We're nearing the end of the year now and if there's any question as to how this tax played out simply read the notice in this photo I snapped the other day. It's a great example of how this tax ordinance ended up working. Although designed to hit distributors, it ended up hitting consumers.