Almost twice as many indoor tanning businesses cut staff in 2011 as compared to those who added staff members, according to a SmartTan.com poll conducted in September.

Overall, four out of five salons either cut staff or maintained staff levels in 2011 — a puzzling number that can almost certainly be blamed on the 2010 imposition of a 10 percent federal tax on UV tanning services to help pay for federal Health Care Reform legislation.

Only 20 percent of salons added staff in 2011, despite the fact that 61 percent of salons believe their business is in a stronger position today than it was in 2010, according to another SmartTan.com poll conducted in September. That disparity makes it hard to explain the lack of hiring on economic uncertainty alone.

“The tanning market — like other industries in America — is not hiring in uncertain times,” Smart Tan Vice President Joseph Levy said. “But unlike other sectors of the economy, there is higher optimism right now in the tanning market’s leading firms. There’s just no doubt that last year’s random imposition of a double-digit tax as an unjustified and un-researched part of the Health Care bill has cost the economy thousands of jobs in the tanning market alone.”