Soft Drinks Industry Levy - the 'Sugar Tax' - the current position

The formal words taken from the Queen’s Speech to Parliament yesterday were – ‘Legislation will be introduced to establish a soft drinks industry levy to help tackle childhood obesity’.

What this means in practice is that there is an intention to impose a new levy on producers UK wide in respect of drinks with added sugar content, to come into force in April 2018. The measure is likely to be contained in the 2017 Finance Bill.  

No other detail was announced yesterday but at the time of the Budget when this proposal was first announced it was suggested that the levy will be imposed on companies according to the volume of the sugar-sweetened drinks they produce or import and that there will be two bands - one for total sugar content above 5g per 100 millilitres and a second, higher band for the most sugary drinks with more than 8g per 100 millilitres. It was reported at the time that analysis by the Office for Budgetary Responsibility suggested they will be levied at 18p and 24p per litre.

We will keep you updated as this develops.