New York University, School of Global Public Health.
Tufts University Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy.
Milbank Q. 2023 Jun;101(2):560-600. doi: 10.1111/1468-0009.12652. Epub 2023 Apr 26.
Policy Points Suboptimal diet is a leading cause of mortality and morbidity in the United States. Excise taxes on junk food are not widely utilized in the United States. The development of a workable definition of the food to be taxed is a substantial barrier to implementation. Three decades of legislative and regulatory definitions of food for taxes and related purposes provide insight into methods to characterize food to advance new policies. Defining policies through Product Categories combined with Nutrients or Processing may be a method to identify foods for health-related goals.
Suboptimal diet is a substantial contributor to weight gain, cardiometabolic diseases, and certain cancers. Junk food taxes can raise the price of the taxed product to reduce consumption and the revenue can be used to invest in low-resource communities. Taxes on junk food are administratively and legally feasible but no definition of "junk food" has been established.
To identify legislative and regulatory definitions characterizing food for tax and other related purposes, this research used Lexis+ and the NOURISHING policy database to identify federal, state, territorial, and Washington DC statutes, regulations, and bills (collectively denoted as "policies") defining and characterizing food for tax and related policies, 1991-2021.
This research identified and evaluated 47 unique laws and bills that defined food through one or more of the following criteria: Product Category (20 definitions), Processing (4 definitions), Product intertwined with Processing (19 definitions), Place (12 definitions), Nutrients (9 definitions), and Serving Size (7 definitions). Of the 47 policies, 26 used more than one criterion to define food categories, especially those with nutrition-related goals. Policy goals included taxing foods (snack, healthy, unhealthy, or processed foods), exempting foods from taxation (snack, healthy, unhealthy, or unprocessed foods), exempting homemade or farm-made foods from state and local retail regulations, and supporting federal nutrition assistance objectives. Policies based on Product Categories alone differentiated between necessity/staple foods on the one hand and nonnecessity/nonstaple foods on the other.
In order to specifically identify unhealthy food, policies commonly included a combination of Product Category, Processing, and/or Nutrient criteria. Explanations for repealed state sales tax laws on snack foods identified retailers' difficulty pinpointing which specific foods were subject to the tax as a barrier to implementation. An excise tax assessed on manufacturers or distributors of junk food is a method to overcome this barrier and may be warranted.
饮食不当在美国是导致死亡和发病的主要原因。美国没有广泛征收垃圾食品消费税。制定可行的征税食品定义是实施的一大障碍。三十年来，美国为税收和相关目的制定的食品立法和监管定义为推进新政策提供了确定食品的方法。通过产品类别结合营养或加工来定义政策可能是确定与健康相关目标食品的一种方法。
饮食不当是体重增加、心血管代谢疾病和某些癌症的主要原因。垃圾食品税可以提高征税产品的价格，以减少消费，税收收入可用于投资资源匮乏的社区。征收垃圾食品税在行政和法律上是可行的，但尚未确定“垃圾食品”的定义。
为了确定立法和监管定义，以确定用于税收和其他相关目的的食品，本研究使用 Lexis+ 和 NOURISHING 政策数据库，从 1991 年至 2021 年，确定并评估了用于税收和相关政策定义和描述食品的联邦、州、地区和华盛顿特区的法规、规章和法案（统称“政策”）。
本研究确定并评估了 47 项独特的法律和法案，这些法律和法案通过以下一项或多项标准定义食品：产品类别（20 个定义）、加工（4 个定义）、产品与加工交织（19 个定义）、产地（12 个定义）、营养成分（9 个定义）和份量（7 个定义）。在 47 项政策中，26 项政策使用了一个以上的标准来定义食品类别，特别是那些与营养目标相关的政策。政策目标包括对食品征税（零食、健康、不健康或加工食品）、对食品免税（零食、健康、不健康或未加工食品）、对州和地方零售法规豁免自制或农场制作的食品、以及支持联邦营养援助目标。仅基于产品类别的政策将必需品/主食食品与非必需品/非主食食品区分开来。
为了明确确定不健康食品，政策通常包括产品类别、加工和/或营养标准的组合。对已废除的州销售税法律关于零食食品的解释表明，零售商难以确定哪些特定食品需要纳税，这是实施的一个障碍。对垃圾食品制造商或分销商征收消费税是克服这一障碍的一种方法，可能是合理的。
