The Tanning Bed Industry Gets Jammed Up by the US Senate

The real controversy of the "tanning tax" is not so much the tax itself, but the efforts that the US senate recently took to swap out a much better tax and keep a much more influential lobby happy.

The "botax" was a plan to levy a 5% surcharge on non-medically necessary cosmetic procedures. It raised the ire of a powerful lobby, The American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgeon, who felt the plan would impede their entrepreneurial endeavors.

They also claimed 86% of plastic surgery patients are women,[i] and such a tax would be discriminating to women.

According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the tax on cosmetic procedures would have brought in $5.8 billion over a decade towards the payment of the Senate's $856 billion dollar Health Care Reform Bill.[ii]

Another factor leading into the removal of the Botax was a so-called nationwide survey that said that the majority of the country found the tax "unfair." The survey was conducted by stopcosmestictax.org, which was funded by big pharmaceutical company Allergan, whose big money product is botox.

The cosmetic tax was removed from consideration just before Christmas. The tanning bed tax remains and is expected to go into effect this summer.

The Joint Committee on Taxation claimed that a 10% tax on the tanning bed industry would bring in $2.5 billion over the decade[iii]. That is almost half of the projections of the cosmetic procedure tax.

The International Smart Tan Network (ISTN) claims the tan tax will force the closure of 1,000 tanning-related businesses and 9,000 jobs will be lost[iv].

The ISTN also claims that dermatologists, who lobbied for the tan tax, use tanning beds to treat skin conditions.

The World Health Organization recently declared the use of tanning beds a "significant cancer hazard."[v]

No one likes to be taxed. There never has been an organization that deems a pending tax as just and fair.

The ultra-powerful forces of the medical industry were able to make the senate cower.

The tanning bed industry, which largely consists of mom-and-pop operations run by women, don't have anywhere near the fiscal and lobbying presence in Washington as the medical industry.

Subsequently, the tanning bed industry gets stuck with a tax that is less effective and efficient.

The cosmetic procedure tax's removal is yet another in a long line of examples that show the influence and power that money wields with the US Senate.

Remember that this is the senate whose plan to increase health insurance coverage is to mandate that people buy insurance. What's next? Are they going to end hunger by mandating that starving people eat food?

With all due respect to the tanning bed industry, they were just a small pawn that got crushed in a big, crazy game. They won't find much, if any, sympathy.

Both taxes should have stayed in.

[i] Modern Medicine. "Pharma, Surgeons Battle Botax" 12-11-2009.

http://www.modernmedicine.com/modernmedicine/ModernMedicine+Now/Pharma-firms-surgeons-battle-Botax/ArticleStandard/Article/detail/648032?contextCategoryId=40174[ii] PR Newswire. "Nationwide Survey Shows Americans Oppose Cosmetic Tax to Pay for Health Care Reform" 12-09-2009. http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/nationwide-survey-shows-americans-oppose-cosmetic-tax-to-pay-for-health-care-reform-78861357.html

[iii] MSNBC. "The Half-Baked Math Behind The Fake Tan Tax." 12-31-2009.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34645589/ns/business-the_big_money/

[iv] Tampa Tribune. "Tanning Salons Turn Red Over Tax Proposal" 12-24-2009

http://www2.tbo.com/content/2009/dec/24/na-tanning-salons-turn-red-over-tax-proposal/

[v] WebMD. "WHO: Tanning Beds Cause Cancer" 7-28-2009

http://www.webmd.com/skin-problems-and-treatments/news/20090728/who-tanning-beds-cause-cancer