Just in time for beach season, America’s favorite tax collecting government agency has officially finished implementing the so-called “tanning tax.”
The tax, which tacks on 10 percent every time someone uses an indoor tanning bed, was first initiated in 2010 but the final regulations for the tax were put in place Monday. It is one of the many new taxes created by President Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare.
While the tax is one of the less controversial parts of the law, in part because indoor tanning increases the risk of developing skin cancer, the IRS claims it will help the agency collect $2.7 billion in revenue by 2019 to help pay for the law’s immense cost.
According to a report by the Indoor Tanning Association, nearly 18,000 tanning businesses nationwide would be forced to tax their customers as a result of the law. The report also noted that the industry may lose 3,100 businesses and 24,000 jobs as a result of the tax.
Unsurprisingly, Republicans are against the tax – and are using the tax as a way to further weaken the public’s opinion of the healthcare law. It also helps that the IRS was caught last month applying extra scrutiny to the applications of conservative organizations and non-profits.
“After their outrageous actions and the lack of any accountability – why should any American trust them [IRS] to be involved in their healthcare,” House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) told Breitbart News.
This article was updated to reflect that the regulations were put in place Monday, not the permanency of the tax.
