The FDA’s new nutritional labeling rules require manufacturers to make a number of changes to their packaging: they must print calorie content in larger font; they must disclose “added sugars”; and they must include Vitamin D and potassium on the list of vitamins and minerals. Here’s an outside-the-box (or on-the-box?) idea: why not require food manufacturers to disclose their effective tax rates too? The rate could be calculated as the ratio of taxes paid over pre-tax GAAP income, and printed right below carbohydrates and proteins.

Why stop at food labels? After all, when it comes to corporate tax avoidance, food processors are far from the worst offenders. According to data compiled by Aswath Damodaran at NYU’s Stern School of Business, the average effective tax rate for firms in the food processing sector in the United States is 24.6%, lower than the market-wide average (29.12%) but quite a bit higher than air transport (3.54%), oil and gas distribution (11.12%), and hotels and gaming (12.05%). We could, for example, require manufacturers of textiles, apparel, and footwear to disclose their effective tax rates alongside the information they already must include on labels (e.g., fiber content, country of origin, and care instructions). We could require pharmaceutical firms to disclose their effective tax rates alongside adverse reaction warnings. We could require distributors of beer, wine, and liquor to disclose effective tax rates alongside alcohol by volume (ABV). And so on.

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