Senate Finance Committee: Let's Tax the Mommy Tuck
Okay, this has gone far enough. The latest idiocy coming out of the health care debate is a proposal to impose a 10% surtax on all cosmetic surgery procedures, from mommy tucks to tighten things up after childbirth, to body contouring for those that have lost a great deal of weight to hair transplants for men who are trying to look younger to keep their jobs. It's the Mommy Tuck Tax.
The Senate Finance Committee has discussed imposing a 10 percent excise tax on cosmetic surgery deemed unnecessary for medical purposes. The idea was broached in a meeting with OMB Director Orszag in mid-July, after which Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus told reporters he had heard some "interesting," "creative," and "kind of fun" ideas.
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Malcolm Roth, vice president for health policy and advocacy at the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, said the New Jersey tax has only brought in about 25 percent of anticipated revenue since it was enacted in 2004 and imposes "another bureaucratic layer," including questions of how to determine what procedures are eligible. Roth said lawmakers at the federal level could expect the same administrative headaches and lack of anticipated revenues if they went down the New Jersey route.
The itemized deduction, for example, has been the subject of litigation in federal tax court. In a 2001 case, a nurse was awarded the deduction for surgery to remove an overhanging skin mass after the IRS initially denied her claim. The court agreed that the mass, which formed after the woman lost 100 pounds, was prone to infection and interfering with her hospital work.
Roth, a plastic surgeon at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., said it "would be a discriminatory tax against women," noting that 86 percent of patients are female and 91 percent are of working age between 19 and 64.
He also disputed the notion it would be a "tax on the wealthy," noting most patients earn less than $100,000 a year. "People put money aside for years, sometimes weekly under-the-mattress deductions" to get the surgery they want, he said.
Dr. Roth is correct. This is a tax aimed squarely at women, women who are simply trying to look younger in a society that demands beauty, youth and perfection in order to keep a job and pass muster in society.
Most plastic surgery is not paid for in cash by wealthy movie stars, but is financed on credit by middle income people who are making an investment in their appearance or simply restoring their figures after having several children.
The tax will also be a bureaucratic nightmare for doctors who presumably now have to hire someone to figure out how to collect and pay this new, burdensome tax. Just say no to the Mommy Tuck Tax.
