After Obamacare slapped a 10% tax on tanning services, Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi started her collection without sunshine. (Showed here at a 2012 launch event.) The spray-on tans is exempt from tax, which Republicans now want to abolish.
Ed Rode/Getty Images)
Mounted between trillion tax cuts in the “big, big, beautiful bill” is to remove tax on domestic tanning services. But before we are in a hurry to book an appointment for the tanning bed, remember that the Senate must still act on this bill and that dermatologists are not fans of tanning.
For the tax
The tanning tax, a 10% excise tax on internal tanning services, dates back to 2010. It was part of the patient’s protection and affordable care law – known as Obamacare. When Congress wants to find money to pay for things that matter – such as health care or tax cuts – generally have to offset these expenses. Sometimes these offenses are in the form of reduced costs or benefits cuts, but more often they appear as new or increased taxes. This happened here. The tax was intended to help pay the new health care law.
You can think of a tax tax as a tax on sales. When it comes to tanning tax, the rules require lounges and other businesses that provide ultraviolet tanning services to collect 10% of the applicable services. Spray and phototherapy services (those used for medical reasons) are exempt from tax. And if the services are connected, the section due to tan is taxable. If, however, the service is part of a gym or other fitness package that is not separate, there is no tax payable.
Previous attempts to remove
The tanning tax was intended not only to increase revenue but also to discourage the use of internal tanning beds. As a result, it was supported by health organizations, including the American Academy of Dermatology (AADA) and the American Medical Union (AMA).
To one 2018 letter Then, the speaker Paul Ryan (R-wis.) And then the leader of the Nancy Pelosi minority (D-Calif), the two joined dozens of other health organizations to oppose a planned abolition of tanning tax. Sun lamps, to be known carcinogenic (a substance that causes cancer). “The letter continued to say that” researchers estimate that internal tanning can cause over 400,000 cases of skin cancer in the US every year. “
The attempted abolition in 2018 eventually failed, as well as a previous attempt to abolish the tax in 2015.
Abolitions may have failed for reasons of public policy, or probably, the results of revenue. One of the interesting things about consumption taxes intended to influence behavior is that if successful, the part of the revenue shrinks. In other words, if the goal is to limit behavior (other taxes are trying to reduce smoking, for example) by taxing behavior, as success rates rise, dollars decrease. This happened here.
The tax is expected to raise $ 2.7 billion in the first decade. After five years, he had raised less than $ 500 million. According to the Administration and Budget Office, the Feds raised only $ 92 million from tax in 2014.
Tax champions say this is due to the fact that the tax worked, effectively discouraging the use of tanning beds. But businesses shouted a foul, arguing that the tax was destroyed their business. According to Ibisworld, in 2011, there were about 85,000 tanning salon operating in the US by 2024, that number had shrunk to less than 21,000.
Pop culture
A study by the National Institutes for the Health of 2023 suggests that the behaviors of tanning beds were changed anyway. Concerns about aging and skin care, as well as health risks, have led to a inclination to products that are not applied by sunset, such as tanning lotions and tanning spraying.
Even pop culture was caught. The most speaking tanned celebrity of the early Naughts-Snooki from today’s MTV’s real show, “Jersey Shore”-which took place after the tax was made, “I no longer go tanning because Obama put 10% tax on tanning and I feel that he did it for us.” Today, you can buy Snooki Sunless Tanning products online.
What will follow
Scheduled Removal has not taken much attention. To be honest, I didn’t even notice it when I first read the bill – it’s a few paragraphs about halfway through the text, stuck between the new 1099 format and the exclusion of interest from incomes on some agricultural and agricultural loans.
The bill passed the house earlier this week with the abolition of tanning tax still intact. Now moves to the Senate.
