The most recent Senate health care bill sent shocks through the nerves of insecure teenage girls across the country by including, at the very last minute, a 10% tax on indoor tanning sessions. This replaced a cosmetic surgery tax as a new revenue stream, because plastic surgeons have something resembling a lobby, and therefore Congress can do nothing except give them everything they want. As for our “tanneries,” they are left scrambling with a few angry e-mails to customers, and nothing more.
Someone forwards Ben Smith this example of the last minute anti-tanning tax push:
———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Sun Tan City
Date: Wed, Dec 23, 2009
Subject: Help stop the tax on tanningDon’t let Congress tax your tanning.
We’ve just learned that a new 10% Federal tax has been proposed on all tanning services. We are reaching out to all Sun Tan City clients to help in the fight to squash this tax.
Time is of the essence, the Senate is on track to vote Christmas Eve so be heard now.
Click on this link: TELL CONGRESS TO TAKE THE TAN TAX OUT OF HEALTHCARE REFORM to register your opposition with your Senators and Member of Congress.
Once on the website, select the customer link. Enter your zip code and address to find your representative and senators. You can either personalize the letter already present in the message field or send it as it is.
Support your right to tan from your friends at
Sun Tan City®
Let yourself shine.®
FREE THESE PEOPLE!
The Guardian adds:
The bulletin boards of tantoday.com, a web forum for salon owners, were full of irate posts. One said: “Thanks Obama for helping a family of 4 trying to get on track and plan for our kids future in a struggling economy after 5 years of personal financial struggles. Please no more help for us small business owners, I can’t afford it!”
But cosmetic surgeons were relieved, because under the old terms of the bill they had been the ones to be targeted for additional taxes. In furious lobbying, they managed to persuade the Democrats drafting the bill that a tax on plastic surgery — dubbed the Bo-tax after Botox — would be unfair to women as most consumers of cosmetic surgery are female.
Sounds like the tanners have a point. Why tax small (admittedly gay) businesses instead of rich people things like cosmetic surgery — especially when the cosmetic surgeons’ lobby can’t come up with anything better than “uhh you would kill women?”
Dan Humiston, president of the Indoor Tanning Association and the owner of 34 salons in New York state, said they were being picked upon. “Out of all industries you could chose, why the tanning industry? Because we’re so wealthy? Because we’re making so much money? From customers who pay $6 for a tan? No, it’s because we’re not going to fight back,” he told the Denver Post.
That’s why.
Indoor tanning is still retarded, though. Us gingers have been telling people this for years. Finally, some results!
Tanning lobby swings into action: ‘Support your right to tan’ [Ben Smith]
Tanning tax angers American salon owners [Guardian]
Read More:
- Justin Bieber Attacks U.S. Health Care Just Because It Bankrupts Sick People
- Anti-Obamacare Congressman Angry His Healthcare Won't Start Right Away
- Chris Dodd Has A Great New Terrible Idea For Health Care!
- House Votes To Kill Your Grandmother & All Christians, 220-215
- Peggy Noonan Abhors This Tasteless Measure To Bring Health To Humans!
{ 50 comments }
We are all tanning salon owners now! (seriously is this becoming the Wonkette version of “first”?)
You know who else taxed tanning salons? Hitler.
It’s just a tax on vanity. It’s not like all that extra UV radiation baking leads to skin cancer or anything…
http://www.skincarephysicians.com/skincancernet/indoor_tanning.html
“Out of all industries you could chose, why the tanning industry? Because we’re so wealthy? Because we’re making so much money? From customers who pay $6 for a tan?”
No, it’s because they just raised taxes on John Boehner and Lindsey Graham.
All they need is a shrink to hand out prescriptions for tanning as seasonal affective disorder therapy and they can get the insurance companies can pay for it.
I went to a tanning salon (once) in the 1980′s, because my friends convinced me that my mid-March Seattle-to-Hawaii trip would otherwise result in a badly scorched hide, if I didn’t prepare for it.
The smell of ‘coconut oil’ still repulses me.
Keep your hands off my tanned TruckNutz.
Whew, I thought it said “trannies” for a moment there. Nothing to see here. Move on.
Let’s say you, like many Americans, own a video store/tanning salon/bait shop in the strip mall. What percentage of your revenue comes from the tanning part of the enterprise? Will you be able to stay in business once every pageant girl in your town can no longer afford the sessions?
So it starts at 6 bucks, add 10%… HOLEESHEET! How will we ever convince the vain to spend an extra 60¢ a week on their mindless, carcinogenic regimens? Why don’t you just raise the cigarette tax and destroy Phillip Morris while you’re at it, Libtards?
You know, I thought I heard a giant scream coming from Jersey earlier.
I live in Florida, and there are tons of people that go to these things. I’m always telling them, “Just go outside for an hour, jeeze”. So, basically, we’re taxing stupid, which I’m all for, we should be out of debt in no time.
Also, black people don’t go to tanning salons. This is more proof that Obama hates white people!
[re=484354]Snarkalicious[/re]: Math is hard.
As usual Shakespeare foresaw this:
HAMLET: How long will a man lie i’ the earth ere he rot?
First Clown: I’ faith, if he be not rotten before he die–as we
have many pocky corses now-a-days, that will scarce
hold the laying in–he will last you some eight year
or nine year: a tanner will last you nine year.
HAMLET: Why he more than another?
First Clown: Why, sir, his hide is so tanned with his trade, that
he will keep out water a great while; and your water
is a sore decayer of your whoreson dead body.
See? Death panels!
[re=484354]Snarkalicious[/re]: You can’t fool me with your inside-the-beltway fuzzy math! If you add a tax of TEN to a tan that costs SIX, that makes the tan-plus-tax cost SIXTEEN DOLLARS. It is on the INTERNET, so it is TRUE.
L fucking O L :
(via HuffPo)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/22/caller-asks-gop-senator-i_n_401376.html
[re=484357]JMP[/re]: Good God. Whatever you do, don’t put that on the internet or it will be Beck’s opening segment tonight.
[re=484356]freakishlystrong[/re]: It’s kinda like how I don’t get how there are Red Lobster “restaurants” in New England. Or an Olive Garden one town over from New Haven in Orange, CT, a town filled with second- and third-generation Italians who know how to make real sauce, and do. But the parking lot is always packed.
I was just at my local drugstore and they’re totally out of all their self-tanning lotions & bronzers. Five entire shelves completely empty! Everyone stock up now while you still have the chance!! The Great Tanning Panic Of 2009 is upon us!!
John Boehner: We’re drawing a line in the tan.
Leathery boobs! Leathery boobs!
[re=484365]Fred Wertham Jr.[/re]: The sad thing is, I actually could see him or Limbaugh saying that for real.
[re=484368]Katydid[/re]: Or a Road Kill Cafe in Gillette, Arkansas.
First, they came for the orange people and I said nothing because I am not orange…
Its a tax on Boehner.
Well done!
[re=484356]freakishlystrong[/re]: You make a good point. Perhaps there should be a tax on using ALL CAPS.
Repubatards should think of it this way: fewer tanning salons means fewer brown people, means fewer brown peoples to kill. We’ll be saving money, idjiots!
Where will we go to work up a sweat in our ass crack now? I never cared much about the tan, but I looked forward to getting my ass crack sweaty. OH THE HUMANITY!
I don’t understand why we can’t tax tanning AND plastic surgery.
[re=484426]Spike[/re]: Actually, what we really need to do is institute a refundable tax credit on botox etc that counts against the estate tax. Then, we eliminate the estate tax. That way, rich white women can finally get that second poolboy(‘s cock) they’ve had their eyes on.
Stimulus!
Katydid: or a Taco Bell in LA
[re=484374]cockfightbarmitzvah[/re]: That was the first thing the stores ran out of, before the blizzard. Right before toilet paper and Doritos.
Six bucks? You mean those people are paying only six bucks? I thought the price of stupid was way higher than that. Shit yeah, tax ‘em.
[re=484368]Katydid[/re]: It’s the crack they sprinkle on the breadsticks at Olive Garden, and the heroin they bake into the Red Lobster biscuits: impossible to resist! (Seriously, now I want some Red Lobster biscuits.)
Ha ha, suffer, you stupid orange bitches.
[re=484375]desertwind[/re]: Nicely turned.
Happy Tanto Day you people!
Yes, a sixty cent tax on a useless “procedure” that dramatically increases skin cancer risks is just like when they rounded the Jews up under the Nazi regime.
Though I guess we should be glad that the lunatic fringe is finally admitting the Holocaust happened. Well, the non-Paultard parts of the lunatic fringe anyway.
Also, I really, really hope they did this just to fuck with John Boehner.
[re=484357]JMP[/re]: Though blacks are more prone to catching sole cancer, so I’d say his hatred is entirely justified.
[re=484381]Snarkalicious[/re]: Real Americans enjoy tossin’ the ol’ pigskin around.
Thanks for the alt text, Jim!
Tanmaster Flash and the Furious Boner give me a raging hard-on!
The dermatologist lobby is also very upset.
[re=484355]JMP[/re]: The blow out doo, popped collar, A|X-wearin’ crowd is howling in rage.
I spent a lot of money on lobbyists to get this tax enacted so I could gain an advantage for my new chain of outdoor eco-friendly solar powered tanning salons (patent pending).
MTV cannot be pleased with the increase in next season’s Jersey Shore’s production costs.
[re=484349]Lascauxcaveman[/re]: Being a Seattle-ite in Hawaii is just cold ridiculous. I can’t even count the number of jokes about glowing in the dark etc. I’ve received there within a 10-day period of time, and those are just the ones said to my face. Oh Seattle.
I imagine the New Jersey senators voted against this amendment, to accurately represent the views of their constituents.
Hey Congress: I have a year ’round tan that doesn’t fade neener neener neener!
(think McHammer and repeat after me) Can’t tax this!
[re=484368]Katydid[/re]: LOL I am always in amazement re: that particular Olive Garden. I recall having to go there once and I can, as the daughter of a 1st generation Italian, verify that the food is vile. I think they figure if it’s got ‘noodles’ it’s officially Eye-Talianized.
And to JMP (“You know, I thought I heard a giant scream coming from Jersey earlier.”)
As the daughter of a 1st generation Italian from Philly who spent her youth in Wildwood I can only say…TOTAL WIN
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