Instructors protest sales tax on Missouri yoga classes
By The Associated Press
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Published: November 5, 2009
ST. LOUIS — Yoga practitioners are criticizing a Missouri sales tax that applies to yoga classes, claiming they should be exempt because the lessons include spiritual elements.
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Missouri Department of Revenue official sent letters to 140 yoga and Pilates centers on Oct. 13, telling them they must collect sales tax on the fees for their classes and services and pay them beginning Nov. 1, if they weren’t already.
The sales tax on money paid to places of "amusement, entertainment or recreation, games and athletic events” isn’t new, revenue spokesman
Ted Farnen said.
He said the letters were sent so the businesses would know that yoga centers offer the same types of fitness services that the
Missouri Supreme Court has found taxable.
But the tax took many Missouri yoga instructors by surprise. They’re bristling at the notion that the practice could be construed as recreation. "Whoever categorized it doesn’t understand what yoga is,” said
Cathleen Williams, the owner of Urban Breath Yoga in St. Louis.
The Spirit of Yoga St. Louis, a group that includes yoga instructors and business owners, is encouraging yoga students to write letters to state politicians, saying they "vehemently disagree” with how yoga is being categorized.
Farnen said he didn’t have a figure for how much Missouri might collect from the sales tax. He said besides Missouri, yoga advertisements from
Ohio and
West Virginia show sales tax is charged there, too.
Missouri said it will consider religious exemptions to the sales tax on a case-by-case basis. Farnen said the revenue letters were sent to yoga and Pilates businesses, not Hindu temples.
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