Every day, 500,000 gallons get sucked up from a limestone basin in northern Florida by the Nestle Water Co. Every hour of each of those days, the water fills 102,000 plastic bottles at a nearby bottling plant. Nestle, and the 22 other bottled water companies in Florida, make a profit anywhere between 10 and 100 times the cost of each bottle. So how much does Nestle pay for the water it drains from the state's natural resources? Nothing.
Taxin' Bottled Water From the Source
In an attempt to correct this free reign, water supply depletin' madness, Republican Governor Charlie Crist is proposing a 6 cent per gallon state tax on all water usurped from aquifers by commercial water bottlers—a tax that could land $56 million in state coffers its first year in effect alone, according to the Miami Herald.
In an attempt to correct this free reign, water supply depletin' madness, Republican Governor Charlie Crist is proposing a 6 cent per gallon state tax on all water usurped from aquifers by commercial water bottlers—a tax that could land $56 million in state coffers its first year in effect alone, according to the Miami Herald.
Florida wouldn't be the first state to do so: Michigan and Vermont already impose a tax on water bottlers, Chicago's got a tax, and Seattle has completely given bottled water the boot. And Florida itself gave taxing commercial water companies a go back in '05—but the measure died in the Senate.
This time, however, things have changed—Florida's economy has collapsed, hit especially hard by the real estate crash—and even many Republicans are welcoming the idea of a new source of tax revenue, though some favor a sales tax.
Some legislators have suggested imposing a similar 6 cent sales tax on every bottle of water consumed in the state. However, since half of the bottled water is exported out of state, an extraction tax would be a much more consistent, effective tax—and it would bring in more revenue to the state. Read more Via the huggers
