Soda tax makes gas tax look wimpy

Per gallon, the soft drink tax proposed by Mayor Nutter would cost consumers almost as much as gas.

The final price at the pump.

Not just the tax on gas.

At 2 cents an ounce, the proposed tax on soft drinks - any beverage with added sugar, including ice tea and chocolate milk - would cost $2.56 a gallon.

At the WaWa on the Black Horse Pike in Mount Ephraim, a gallon of regular goes for just $2.53.

Including about 33 cents for state and federal gas taxes.

At the Shell at 12th and Vine in Philadelphia, a gallon of regular costs $2.86, according to Joe Yu, who works for S&B Auto Services, which owns the station.

That's including 51 cents for gas taxes - about 32 cents for Pennsylvania, 18.4 for the feds, according to the Washington, D.C., based Tax Foundation.

So, before taxes, that gas would cost $2.35 - less than the city's proposed sugary soft-drink tax alone.

Gasoline is cheaper than the soda tax itself - before being charged for any soda.

Now let's add the soda and play percentages.

Gas taxes add about 21 percent to the cost of regular at S&B's Shell station.

Two-liter bottles of Coke are on sale at the Acme - get 10 for $10. Roughly, a liter is little more than a quart, so that's about $2 a gallon - cheaper than gas.

Now add the approximately $2.56 in soda tax.

That's 128 percent more.

Gulp, now the cost is 10 bottles is close to $23, not counting sales tax.

(Makes you wonder ... how much is adding seltzer to grape juice or OJ? Juices without "added sugar" wouldn't be taxed - even if they're also obesity-promoting, according to the American Medical Association.)

Per gallon, the $2.56 soft-drink tax would be way more than state beer taxes - 8 cents in Pennsylvania, 12 in New Jersey.

Stiffer, though, are taxes that wind up added to distilled spirits - estimated at $6.54 a gallon in Pennsylvania, $5.50 in New Jersey, according to the Tax Foundation.

Even more extreme are cigarette taxes. An ounce of water weighs an ounce, so a beverage tax is like a tax by weight. A pack of cigarettes weighs about 1 ounce, so 128 ounces (the equivalent of a gallon) would be about 128 packs taxed at $1.35 each in Pennsylvania. That's almost $173. Double that in Jersey.

But that's not quite the record for tax-sticker shock.

Consider other taxes by the pound. Like sales tax on a diamond.

But most maddening are all those taxes on your light-as-a-feather paycheck - hundreds of dollars for a fraction of an ounce.

Use direct deposit and the weight becomes zero - making the per-ounce tax rate infinite.

Ouch.

I may need something stronger than a soda.