Since January 1, 2017, the city of the east coast of the United States imposes a tax of about 50 cents per litre on all beverages sweetened or "light".

A tax is imposed in 2017 by the large american city of Philadelphia on sugar-sweetened beverages, and sweetened resulted in a drop in sales of 38%, according to one of the first studies to evaluate the effects of these new taxes. Since January 1, 2017, Philadelphia imposes a tax of 1.5 cent per fluid ounce, or approximately 50 cents per litre on all beverages sweetened or "light". The stores have passed on the tax in whole or in part ; therefore, in Philadelphia, the bottle average has increased from 24 cents in the supermarket, and more than 50 cents in the stores.

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Between the years 2016 and 2017, the average sales have dropped by half in volume, according to the study carried out on the basis of data of the crates, and published today in the Journal of the american academy of medicine (Jama). The consumers have partially compensated for by going to stores on the borders of Philadelphia, where sales have increased. Taking this effect into account, the decline in sales is estimated at 38% year-over-year. To ensure that the decrease is due to the tax, the researchers compared Philadelphia to Baltimore, without special fee : there, the sales remained stable.

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It is especially in the large surfaces that the decline was concentrated among the large bottles "family" and the packs - perhaps in part because of the posters of information on the tax have made it more "visible" to the client. No substitution effect with water was not observed. Philadelphia is the second u.s. city to have enacted the tax, after the small Berkeley. Taxes the highest Boulder and Seattle. The sharp decline can also be explained without doubt by the relative poverty of Philadelphia. Smaller families, larger consumers of soft drinks are more price-sensitive.

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pediatricians are actively lobbying for these taxes in order to combat the high obesity in children, not to mention tooth decay or diabetes. France has adopted a tax diet soda in 2013. Since last year, it varies depending on the rate of sugar but remains generally lower than the u.s. rates. It is of the order of 15 euro cents, 17 cents, dollars, per litre of Coca Cola, for example.