How vegans are planning to tax meat-eaters and vegetarians

In a poll recently shared by Plant Based News on Twitter, the vegan news company asked: “Should meat-eaters pay more tax?”. A whopping 72% of participants answered “yes”.

Should meat-eaters pay more tax? 🥩💰

— Plant Based News (@PlantBasedNews) April 7, 2022

This question made some people angry:

You are indicating that your position on food is morally superior and should award you advantages over who you see as your opposition. This is a fascist mindset and one I cannot engage with.

After the uproar from many meat-eaters and vegetarians, vegans came up with a new plan. They are pushing for a surcharge to be added on products consumed by meat-eaters and vegetarians. And all that by decreasing taxes.

If you understand what it is like to split the bill evenly between friends at a restaurant after you purposely picked the cheapest item on the menu to save money, you will understand vegans’ new proposed plan.

The government allocates tax money to healthcare, social support, military, etc… But a less-known allocation of these funds is toward subsidies to help some industries. And the meat, dairy and egg industry get a lot of help from your taxes!

Without government subsidies, animal products wouldn’t be able to be as cheap as they are now. Farmers can make a living while keeping costs down because the government gives them money coming from the taxpayers’ pockets.

If these subsidies are no longer provided, animal farms would be forced to sell their products at their actual production costs.

A decrease in tax would remove government support for animal farming and lead to a more authentic price label on the shelves: the actual cost of animal farming, simply by shifting animal farmers’ source of income from the taxpayers to the consumers.

A vegan activist told NBN:

We constantly hear that veganism is so expensive. People don’t understand those animal products are extremely costly to produce, but subsidies hide that cost.

Meat-eaters and vegetarians can choose to support industries that exploit and causes great suffering to animals. It is their personal choice to participate in purchasing these products and support what these industries do to animals.

But, as a nation of animal lovers, we should make people pay for the suffering inflicted on animals, instead of accomodating for such behaviour.