Tanning Tax Replaces Bo-Tax in Health Care Bill
Tanning bed enthusiasts will now face a steep tax. Photo: Flickr
After we reported that the bo-tax - a 5% tax on all services considered cosmetic surgery - was added to the current health reform bill to help fund it, an aggressive push from surgeons and lobbyists like Botox maker Allergen lit up cross country.
The main issue at hand? Working class women would be disproportionately affected by the 5% cosmetic tax, and some doctors even told us they thought the provision was sexist.
But good news for Botox addicts - you can relax (if your muscles still move that is) - Congress has chucked aside the 5% cosmetic tax and at the last minute replaced it with a 10% tax on tanning bed sessions to help fund the healthcare bill, citing concerns that tanning booths increase rates of skin cancer.
The tanning tax would raise an estimated $2.7 billion over ten years, according to The LA Times; half of what experts predicted the bo-tax would bring in.
Not a shocker: the tanning industry isn't taking this lying down.
"It's not surprising that one primarily cosmetic business is trying to throw another under the bus by transferring a tax from rich doctors and their wealthy customers to struggling small businesses," said John Overstreet, executive director of the Indoor Tanning Association, in a released statement.
There's one area of wiggle room in the bill: phototherapy performed by a "medical professional" is exempt from the tax. Phototherapy utilizes the "blue light" wave to treat medical conditions ranging from psoriasis to newborn jaundice and Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD).
But before the tanners out there develop instantaneous SAD, remember this: Tanning beds and phototherapy aren't the same thing. While light therapy machines use anti-bacterial blue light, tanning beds use strong UVA and UVB rays that penetrate far deeper into the skin - resulting in that golden bronze color change.






nosunnolife, 12-24-2009, 6:22PM
With this rotten economy and suffocating health care costs, many tanning salons, as well as other small businesses, are hanging on by a thread of hope -- praying that things will turn around. Now this! — A Pearl Harbor style sneak attack on small business initiated by our own government! — Sen. Harry Reid sacrifices Mom and Pop to the AMA gods at the altar of corruption -- the United States Capitol!
Majority leader Reid has just substituted into the Senate Health Care Bill, a last minute, out of nowhere indoor tanning tax in exchange for dropping the plastic surgery tax (a.k.a Botax). His reasoning? The 5% cosmetic surgery tax would have discriminated against women. Oh! And the 10% tanning salon tax won’t? This tax is wrong on so many levels and it’s going to blow up in the Demosplats’ faces.
The House must stand up to the Senate and eliminate this insult to the working class and small businesses or it’s going to be a PR nightmare for the Administration — who needs to get out in front of this as well — ASAP!
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