D.C.’s proposed "yoga tax," which would tack a 5.75% sales tax on to gym and health club memberships, sends mixed messages to the alleged "fittest city in America." On one hand, the district would be actively punishing people for improving themselves all while giving unhealthy people another reason not to get in shape. A yoga tax would give people even more of a reason to ignore the First Lady.
Like Max Baucus, I too love running outside in D.C. But there are only four months a year where you can run outside without risk of death, so gyms are the only place people in the district can get their swell on without fear of heat stroke or frost bite year round. Pesky winter layering often gets in the way of a solid gym selfie.
D.C. would be cutting off its nose to spite its face with this proposed tax. The taxing of gym memberships will surely reduce the sales of yoga pants. Not only is this tax profoundly anti-health, it is anti-business.
Considering the Sunday uniform for so many ladies of the district is a pair of Lululemons, the pinch would be felt at brunch tables from Foggy Bottom to Eastern Market.
Obviously, the usual suspects are circling the wagons to push another unwanted fee on the populace, ignoring the fact that gyms make people healthy and thus reduce health care costs.
A federal yoga tax is, in fact, a matter of national security. While we're taxing Americans out of gyms, Putin is reassembling the Soviet bloc by easing restrictions on allowing people to exercise. Strength, endurance, and virility are fundamental American values.
We lose our gyms and we lose America.