Following the decision to impose a tax on sweet drinks, Health Minister Uriel Bosso wrote to Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Monday morning and demanded the establishment of an interministerial team to build a plan to transfer tax revenues to budgeting and promote public health activities.
Smotrich and Bosso, Photo: Jonathan Zindel/Flash90, Joshua Yosef
Bosso appears to be trying to torpedo Smotrich's move by opposing and painting the clause as a public health measure, a move he knows the Treasury will oppose. It should be noted that in fact, tax sanctions are one of the leading strategies of the Ministry of Health in the matter of combating smoking and the consumption of unhealthy food.
In a letter sent to the Minister of Finance, Health Minister Bosso noted that "the Ministry of Health is engaged regularly and even more intensively these days in promoting preventive and therapeutic activity to reduce excess morbidity resulting from increased consumption of sugar – and considerable resources are invested in this."
A shelf of sugary drinks, photo: Getty Images
The Minister of Health added, "The publication of the draft customs tariff order and exemptions and sales tax on goods from Friday, December 15, 12 has been brought to my attention. Although I was surprised that the draft order was published without prior coordination with me, I was pleased to see that you share the need to fight the obesity epidemic spreading in Israel, a large part of which stems from excess consumption of sugar, caused by the consumption of sugary beverages.
"I note that the Health Ministry under my leadership will not lend its hand to health repairs being submitted through tax amendments and economic sanctions that will be imposed on citizens. At the same time, I believe that in order to ensure that the benefits to the general public are maximized from this move, it is necessary to ensure that the objectives of this step will not be purely fiscal and therefore all the receipts received as a result of the tax should be directed to efforts that will serve the war on obesity and the morbidity caused by it," Minister Bosso wrote in his letter.
Ministry of Health, Photo: Oren Ben Hakon
According to Bosso, "All the relevant data are in the hands of the professional echelons in the ministries of health and finance, and therefore I ask you to immediately establish joint professional teams to present us with a plan for the exact nature of the tax as well as the health issues to which the tax receipts will be directed."
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