BDLive reports that the Beverage Association of SA (Bevsa) said on Tuesday that a proposed levy on sugar-sweetened beverages could cost SA R14bn and destroy 10,000 small businesses.  

Briefing the media on the industry’s submissions to the Treasury on the proposed levy, the industry said the tax would cost the fiscus an additional R3.8bn, with small-scale farmers and spaza shops most affected.  A study commissioned by the industry poked holes in the supposed fiscal and health benefits of the tax, Bevsa executive director Mapule Ncanywa said, with the industry calling on the Treasury to make available its own socioeconomic study on the effect of the levy.  Along with the tax implications of 68,000 jobs and the collective cost of job losses to the fiscus, the tax represented a cost of R3.8bn, Ncanywa claimed.

• Read this report by Karl Gernetzky in full at BDLive
• Read too, Sugar-tax plan sparks fears over jobs, at Business Report

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