The Sugar-Gate Tax – An Obstacle or an Opportunity for Fizzy Drinks Producers?

The Health Lobby has won a significant battle, as the Chancellor gets busy with the fizzy. What might his new tax mean for soft drinks producers?

Just for the taste of it…

Following Mr Osborne’s new tax on sugary fizzy drinks, announced in March’s Budget, is it now beholden on soft drinks producers to develop new recipes, primarily perhaps -just for the taste of it?

The soft drinks industry is big business, but if money is to keep flowing from customers’ pockets and the Health Lobby and the public are to see any genuine and measurable longer term benefits from the new sanctions, the streams of Soda are going to have to carry a lot less sugar than they used to.

However, producers will not want to lose trademark flavours, that the sugar content contributes to, that have won them legions of customers. Neither, perhaps, will they want to run the risk of simply passing on the cost of taxation to those customers.

Research in to how to keep the flavour, whilst reducing the sugar, may present an opportunity for those developing new recipes and processes, to recoup significant sums in Research and Development Tax Relief awards and a spoonful of cash might help the medicine go down.

Where expenditure can be shown to have been outlaid on such work, whether ultimately successful or not, there may be a channel via which an application for R & D Tax Relief can be lodged with HMRC.

Applying for Research and Development Tax Relief is not straightforward, but that’s where Cooden Tax Consulting comes in. We’re positively fizzing with advice to assist all sorts of enterprises. We’ve saved companies between £3k – £300k in tax – that’s even better than a sugar rush!

www.coodentaxconsulting.co.uk