Don't call taxes on bottled water a "sin tax"

water bottles smallI've been reading stories lately in a variety of "green" online venues that characterize Chicago's tax on bottled water as a "sin tax" similar to taxes of liquor and cigarettes. Not only does this not make sense, it runs the risk of creating opposition among many who would otherwise support a bottle tax (after all it is only $.05 per bottle!) Even though the intellectual underpinnings of both taxes may be similar (recognizing downstream costs to society of personal behavior), many people will react differently to alcohol and cigarettes than they do to bottled water.

Instinctively, most of us do believe that taxing alcohol and cigarettes rather heavily is fair - users should help out society in return for their "sins" of using these "bad" substances. But I doubt that most people are ready to see bottled water in the same light, and while casting bottled water as evil and equal in badness to long established sins like booze and butts may make some environmentalists feel better, it does not make sense from a marketing point of view.

It may seem like hair splitting to some - but marketing is part of how bottled water got to be so popular, and those of us who want to educate the public and influence people to recognize the social costs of personal behavior need to pay attention to the marketing messages we send by the language we use

By taxing bottled water Chicago is not creating a new "sin tax." Chicago is telling its citizens that bottled water costs the city money to deal with and wants to pass some or all of those costs on users. It's not a sin to drink bottled water! We don't need to alienate our fellow citizens by accusing them - even obliquely - of being sinners simply because they have bought the marketing messages of the bottled water industry. I doubt that nickel is going to change much behavior by itself, but if we can use this issue to move the discussion into public consciousness, this little tax can make a big difference in and around Chicago, maybe even elsewhere.