Eat at Home or Away from Home? The Role of Grocery and Restaurant Food Sales Taxes

Sales taxes on both grocery food and restaurant food exist in almost every county in the United States. By combining county level sales tax data with USDA’s recent national household food acquisition and purchase survey, we examine how a food sales tax affects consumers’ expenditures on grocery and restaurant food. We find that a grocery tax reduces consumers’ grocery food expenditures and increases restaurant food expenditure, which has further public health implication because the latter is generally considered to be less healthy. A restaurant food sales tax increases consumers’ grocery food expenditures. Such result provide insight into the potential impact of “fat” taxes on fast food restaurants. In addition, we find no differential impacts from food sales taxes based on consumers’ income, participation status in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or sharing borders with lower taxed counties. Finally, our results provide evidence that many consumers are attentive to food sales taxes even though the taxes are added at the register and are not salient.