Tax to Sugar Beverages

Final Project

Author:
Enrique Del Castillo Chávez

Teacher:
Raúl Francisco Montalvo Corzo

09/10/2019
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Tecnológico de Monterrey A00354844

Tax to Sugar Beverages

The main purpose of this script is to analyze the claims affirmations, arguments
and inferences, regards the new tax to sugar beverages approved in Mexico on the
year 2013. To do so I will emphasize in purpose of the tax, future expectations and
government perspective of society. All focused on the critical thinking process for
taking critical decisions. That not only affects society, but its key for communicating
the right message to a country.
First, a tax “is a compulsory financial charge, or some other type of levy imposed
upon a taxpayer by a governmental organization” (lexico.com, 2019). Which
basically means that the government get total economic benefic on what ever tax
they think is worth charging people for. In the DOF text says, “It is fundamental to
have a State policy to change food consumption and physical activity patterns of
the Mexican society.” (DOF, 2013) Now that doesn’t mean that it needs to be an
economic policy, the Mexican government is committing a fallacy by just putting a
tax assuming people will stop buying sugar beverages just because they are 3 or 4
Mexican pesos more. To get people to change a habit they have had all their
lifetime, they need more than just a change on price, they need programs,
institutions and people that take care not just of the process but of the postprocess.
Now on the document is clear that the government pretends to invest in programs
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Tecnológico de Monterrey A00354844

with this money, but they do not mention any names, people in charge, or any type
of reasonable information that can justify the need of an economic policy. Which
makes the document a mere claim with no background or any grounds for getting
the money from the people.
Next I will be talking about the future expectations that the text says they will have
after implementing this new tax. In the text we can find this sentence, “Any effort to
diminish the adverse effects of this situation and the cost involved for its treatment
should be analyzed not only for a policy of public health; for that reason, it has
been considered that a fiscal measure will contribute to the mentioned purpose.”
(DOF, 2013) We can observe that this argument lacks of any evidence of what are
they traying to do after getting the money.

Now as we can see from the last graph (10 most obese countries in 2015), it is
more than a fact that Mexico not just didn’t stop buying sugar beverages with the
tax but, the tax increased the consumption of them. Now this BBC news article
does not stop here, it also mentions that the rate of obesity will rise until 2030. This
is a proof of how not having the “How?” in the document can strongly affect the
future generations, as well as making clear that claims aren’t valid arguments to
sustain any future expectations.
Finally, government perspective of society. More than just reading words I would
like to analyze this text in a critical perspective, “through the establishment at the
producer and importer level, with an specific quota of 1 Mexican peso per liter of
sugary beverages, including concentrated syrups, flavor extracts or essences that
when diluted produce sugar-added beverages.” (DOF, 2013) This argument not
just implies that the political society suppose that by charging will change their
mindset of buying sodas. But it’s obvious that they were terribly wrong, in the
article “Mexico ocupa el primer lugar en Latinoamerica” (Estado, 2019) taken from
one of the government official webpages. It made clear that the strategy
approached gave the wrong idea, in the DOF they said they would invest in
programs, what they did not said is how would they give this information to the
people. Which created a lack of information and a failure on the implementation of
the anti-obesity programs. The document arguments about raising the prices to the
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producers tax to decrease the consumption, it clearly lacked of information which

made it incomplete and mere speculations made from the federal government to
the people, they cleared out that they not only do not understand the people, but
they don’t have any idea of how to implement projects to change society habits.
In conclusion, I would like to stand out my own opinion of how the government
thinks Mexican people don’t understand what is going on inside the government.
But the political society has also the nerve to omit information and make claims
with no evidence, arguments or even one reasonable reason why they do things or
how will this decision affect the society.

References
BBC. (6 de April de 2018). BBC News. Obtenido de https://www.bbc.com/news/world-43668927

DOF. (2013). Bebidas Azucaradas, para bajar la Obesidad. CDMX.

Estado, I. d. (3 de April de 2019). Gobierno de Mexico. Obtenido de

https://www.gob.mx/issste/prensa/mexico-ocupa-el-primer-lugar-en-obesidad-en-
latinoamerica-issste?idiom=es

lexico.com. (2019). Lexico. Obtenido de Lexico: https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/tax