{"id":495602,"date":"2010-03-31T16:21:07","date_gmt":"2010-03-31T20:21:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.wsj.com\/health\/2010\/03\/31\/is-the-tanning-tax-half-baked\/"},"modified":"2010-03-31T16:21:07","modified_gmt":"2010-03-31T20:21:07","slug":"is-the-tanning-tax-half-baked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/495602","title":{"rendered":"Is the Tanning Tax Half Baked?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/s.wsj.net\/public\/resources\/images\/OB-HZ863_tannin_D_20100331152427.jpg\" alt=\"tanning\" align=\"right\"\/>The horse-trading that helped win doctors&#8217; support for the health-care overhaul included replacing a proposed 5% tax on Botox treatments and elective cosmetic procedures with a 10% tax on indoor tanning services. <\/p>\n<p>The tanning tax made it into the <a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB10001424052748704454004575135942557501242-search.html\" >final law<\/a> and is supposed to raise $2.7 billion over 10 years. The tanning industry&#8217;s trade group has been saying anyone who thinks the revenue target is realistic has been standing out in the sun too long. &#8220;It&#8217;s almost laughable,&#8221; the head of the Indoor Tanning Association <a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB126144830913601141-search.html\" >told the WSJ<\/a> in December.<\/p>\n<p>An article in <a href=\"http:\/\/thehill.com\/blogs\/on-the-money\/domestic-taxes\/89835-industry-calls-healthcares-27b-tanning-tax-a-fantasy\" >the Hill<\/a> today walks through the math in more detail, using the association&#8217;s estimate that there are about 25,000 tanning-bed salons, including some gyms and nail salons, that would be subject to the tax. On that basis, each tanning business would have to collect $108,000 in taxes over the decade to get to the $2.7 billion revenue estimate, the group says.<\/p>\n<p>Some 30 million Americans currently visit tanning salons at least once a year, according to the group. Based on an estimated cost of $7 per session, those customers would have to make about 3.9 billion visits over the decade to hit the tax target.<\/p>\n<p>The Joint Committee on Taxation, which came up with the $2.7 billion figure, told the Hill it couldn&#8217;t divulge the economic models it used for the revenue estimate.<\/p>\n<p>Dermatologists and other backers of the tanning tax, which doesn&#8217;t apply to sessions done for medical reasons, say it&#8217;s a good idea because it will discourage people from being exposed to added cancer risk.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Correction:<\/strong> This post originally said each tanning business would have to collect $108 million in taxes over the decade to get to the $2.7 billion revenue estimate.<\/p>\n<p><em>Photo: iStockphoto<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~at\/BwCpPYWhh1yE0vQlchH7Ia7OT1o\/0\/da\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~at\/BwCpPYWhh1yE0vQlchH7Ia7OT1o\/0\/di\" border=\"0\" ismap=\"true\"><\/img><\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~at\/BwCpPYWhh1yE0vQlchH7Ia7OT1o\/1\/da\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~at\/BwCpPYWhh1yE0vQlchH7Ia7OT1o\/1\/di\" border=\"0\" ismap=\"true\"><\/img><\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"feedflare\">\n<a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/wsj\/health\/feed?a=_4sQH4YnMzI:L51CMxbJBGE:yIl2AUoC8zA\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/wsj\/health\/feed?d=yIl2AUoC8zA\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/wsj\/health\/feed?a=_4sQH4YnMzI:L51CMxbJBGE:D7DqB2pKExk\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/wsj\/health\/feed?i=_4sQH4YnMzI:L51CMxbJBGE:D7DqB2pKExk\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/wsj\/health\/feed?a=_4sQH4YnMzI:L51CMxbJBGE:F7zBnMyn0Lo\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/wsj\/health\/feed?i=_4sQH4YnMzI:L51CMxbJBGE:F7zBnMyn0Lo\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/wsj\/health\/feed?a=_4sQH4YnMzI:L51CMxbJBGE:V_sGLiPBpWU\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/wsj\/health\/feed?i=_4sQH4YnMzI:L51CMxbJBGE:V_sGLiPBpWU\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/wsj\/health\/feed?a=_4sQH4YnMzI:L51CMxbJBGE:qj6IDK7rITs\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/wsj\/health\/feed?d=qj6IDK7rITs\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/wsj\/health\/feed\/~4\/_4sQH4YnMzI\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The horse-trading that helped win doctors&#8217; support for the health-care overhaul included replacing a proposed 5% tax on Botox treatments and elective cosmetic procedures with a 10% tax on indoor tanning services. The tanning tax made it into the final law and is supposed to raise $2.7 billion over 10 years. The tanning industry&#8217;s trade [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":792,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-495602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/792"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=495602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495602\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=495602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}