Opinion: Navajo Nation enacts 'sin tax' on unhealthy products

Junk food taxes are sin taxes to control behavior, but they also raise revenue. With obesity, diabetes and other health problems on the rise, junk food taxes are hardly a novel concept. But they have been hard fought and harder to pass. Not anymore. Ironically, a tax exempt Native American Tribe, the Navajo Nation, is the first jurisdiction in America to impose one.

The Navajo reservation encompasses a territory the size of West Virginia, straddling Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. The Navajos passed a 2 percent sales tax on pastries, chips, soda, desserts, fried foods, sweetened beverages, and other products with “minimal-to-no-nutritional value.” The tax has been a long time coming, but its arrival is still historic. Although sin taxes are imposed on producers or sellers, they are almost inevitably passed on to buyers. They differ from sales taxes mostly by being more targeted. Suspect services can be targeted too.

There are similar fat and sugar tax initiatives outside the United States. Mexico has one. But there has not been one in the U.S. until now. The sales tax will generate an estimated $1 million a year in 110 tribal chapters for greenhouses, food processing and storage facilities, traditional foods cooking classes, community gardens, farmers’ markets, etc.