After losing at the Common Pleas and Commonwealth Court, parties arguing against the imposition of a tax on sweetened beverages by the City of Philadelphia will pin its hopes on a reversal at the Supreme Court. According to the description of the tax on the City’s revenue page “… this tax is on any non-alcoholic beverage, syrup or other concentrate used to prepare a beverage that lists any form of artificial sugar substitute, including stevia, aspartame, sucralose, neotame, acesulfame potassium (Ace-K), saccharin, and advantame.” The tax rate is 1.5 cents per ounce of beverage.
It is a fairly sure bet that if the tax is upheld plenty of municipalities will be looking into creating a similar tax. Of course. Philadelphia has much broader taxing power due to falling under the Sterling Act as opposed to Act 511 for local taxing ability, (as noted in the Taxation Manual “The Sterling Act gives Philadelphia the power to levy taxes on any privilege, transaction, subject or personal property not subject to a state tax or license. There are no limits on the rate of taxation under the Act”) but one can envision a scenario where non-Philadelphia locales would be petitioning the Legislature for the power to tax sweetened beverages, and one can also envision a scenario where the interest groups against the tax would be pushing to make it explicit in state codes that such a tax could not be levied.
Around 2010 Pittsburgh floated the idea of a pop tax but the proposal did not go very far.
