Christmas Tree Tax Gets Axed by the White House

A new program, which would have added a 15-cent tax to Christmas trees starting today, was put on hold by the Obama administration after many saw it as a tax on Christmas.

Information from the Department of Agriculture indicated that the tree tax would be a charge on “producers and importers” of Christmas trees. So in effect the so-called Christmas Tree Tax was not a tax on the consumer, but rather a cost of doing business to the sellers.

Why was the Christmas Tree Tax developed?

The fee program was actually developed by the industry itself with the idea of creating a fund for the implementation of a Christmas Tree Promotion Board who’s focus would be on promoting the sale of fresh cut Christmas trees.

Many compare what the industry was trying to accomplish with a similar program within the Dairy industry with the “got milk” and other campaigns.

According to reports, the industry had been working on the proposal for some time in an effort to combat the increasing competition from producers of artificial trees. The efforts by the industry to get sellers to voluntary contribute to Christmas tree marketing campaigns were not very successful, which is why the government got involved to make the retailer supported funding mandatory.

While the Christmas tree growers clearly supported the measure, many who were less informed on the nature of the fees in addition to the relatively tiny amount in relation to the cost and profit from the sale of the tree, saw it as a tax on Christmas.

White House Stops a Tax on Christmas Trees

In a statement to the media, White House spokesman Matt Lehrich told Fox News, “I can tell you unequivocally that the Obama administration is not taxing Christmas trees. What’s being talked about here is an industry group deciding to impose fees on itself to fund a promotional campaign, similar to how the dairy producers have created the ‘Got Milk?’ campaign,” said Lehrich. “That said, USDA is going to delay implementation and revisit this action.”