NYSDA Alerts

Excise tax on dental devices information

Due to tremendous misinformation over the 2.3 % federal excise tax imposed by Section 4191 of the United States Internal Revenue Code (as a result of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act) on manufactures of medical devices (including dental devices), the following information is provided to clarify:

1. This is not a tax on dentists and is not paid by dentists or dental practices
   
2. Dentists and dental practices are not required to report or calculate anything related to the tax

The tax is a tax only on manufacturers of medical/dental devices that they sell to health care providers and others, and is calculated based on the price for which the manufacturer sells the device.  The reason the tax is disliked by lots of people is that, as with all forms of excise tax, a manufacturer usually builds the cost of paying the tax into the purchase price of its goods.  Thus, the cost of all medical/dental devices to the direct purchaser (usually a physician or dentist) will likely go up – typically never considered to be an attractive thing when prices rise and the cost of doing business thereby increases.  However, that effect is indirect in that the physician or dentist is not actually charged the tax by the government.