While reading my favorite tax blogs, I came across this entry from Don’t Mess with Taxes on the newest suggestion to help pay for health care reform: taxing cosmetic surgery.
To be precise, they {congress} want the beautiful people who got their good looks thanks to plastic surgery to pay.
According to the Drudge Report (via Tax Policy Blog), Senate Finance Committee members have discussed imposing a 10 percent excise tax on cosmetic surgery deemed unnecessary for medical purposes.
Personally, I plan to continue to age gracefully, mainly because my pain threshold is markedly lower than my vanity threshold, so this proposed tax wouldn't affect me. But I still think it's a bad idea.
It singles out a group of taxpayers who, for the most part, already foot these types of medical bills on their own since tax law doesn't allow for purely cosmetic surgery costs to be counted as deductible expenses.
Moreover, it makes the implicit assumption that folks getting face-lifts or tummy tucks or various enhancements are wealthy. That's not necessarily true.