An even tax for an even tan?

Looks like we, the taxpayers, got burned again. Among the $409 billion in taxes and fees to pay for Obama Care through 2019, a tanning tax was to generate $2.7 billion over 10 years, including $200 million for fiscal 2011, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.

The tax brought in $17.8 million in the last quarter of the 2010 fiscal year and $36.6 million in the first half of fiscal 2011, according to a report from J. Russell George, the Treasury Department’s inspector general for tax administration.

Congress’s actions to favor some while penalizing other tanning operations may have contributed to the Obama Care funding shortfall. Gyms and health clubs that offer tanning as an ancillary service are exempt from the tax. Hair salons and movie-rental outlets with tanning beds are subject to the tax.

Before the program has gotten off the ground, Obama Care is running an unsustainable deficit.

Mike Tennis

Sleepy Hollow