News In Brief

10 percent federal tax on tanning starts today

Melissa Kaplan Jul 1, 2010

If you thought a day at the tanning salon was already taxing, now the federal government is getting involved. Today begins a 10 percent tax on tanning, aimed at discouraging the practice. The tax comes as a tenant of the health care reform bill and targets the link between excessive tanning and skin cancer in young women. To save some skin, women have been rushing to tanning salons to beat the tax ahead of time.

The Seattle Post Intelligencer blog has a list of guidelines for navigating the tanning tax. Great news: it doesn’t apply to spray-ons!

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