Vice President Kamala Harris is echoing an idea first proposed by her opponent, Donald Trump, by pledging that she would push to eliminate taxes on tips.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I am president, we will continue our fight for working families of America, including to raise the minimum wage and eliminate taxes on tips for service and hospitality workers,\u201d Harris said during a campaign rally Saturday at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas.<\/p>\n
It was the last stop for Harris and her running mate on the Democratic ticket, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, as they toured swing states, including Nevada, where the service industry is a major employer. Leisure and hospitality is the main industry in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, accounting for over a quarter of total employment in January 2023, according to the Nevada Office of Workforce Innovation.<\/p>\n
Many service workers were enthusiastic when Trump made a similar proposal at a rally in the same city two months ago. \u201cFor those hotel workers and people that get tips, you\u2019re going to be very happy. Because when I get to office, we are going to not charge taxes on tips,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n
After Harris\u2019s announcement, Trump said in a post on his social media platform that Harris \u201ccopied my NO TAXES ON TIPS Policy,\u201d adding that \u201cThis was a TRUMP idea \u2013 She has no ideas, she can only steal from me.\u201d<\/p>\n
The idea of scrapping taxes on tips for some workers is not new, and unions representing service and hospitality workers have been pushing for it for years. Still, some of those unions expressed skepticism that Trump would be able to implement the idea when he proposed it. Ted Pappageorge, secretary-treasurer for Culinary Workers Union Local 226 \u2014 which endorsed Harris and Walz ahead of Saturday\u2019s event \u2014 previously said the Culinary Union has \u201cfought for tipped workers\u2019 rights and against unfair taxation\u201d for decades.<\/p>\n
\u201cRelief is definitely needed for tip earners, but Nevada workers are smart enough to know the difference between real solutions and wild campaign promises from a convicted felon,\u201d Pappageorge said in a statement, referring to Trump\u2019s New York conviction this year on charges related to a hush money payment.<\/p>\n
The hospitality workers union Unite Here, which also endorsed Harris, likewise downplayed Trump\u2019s pledge. Union President Gwen Mills told the Associated Press that Trump was \u201cmaking a play\u201d for votes.<\/p>\n
As The Washington Post has reported, under current law, all gratuities that workers receive must be taxed at the same rate as their regular income, and many employers report their workers\u2019 tips to the Internal Revenue Service \u2014 but much is paid in cash and never reported. More than 6 million workers had tips reported to the IRS in 2018, the most recent year for which complete data is available.<\/p>\n
Tips are crucial for many hospitality and service workers. The federal government and many states allow employers to pay tipped workers well below the normal minimum wage, provided they make up the difference to ensure each worker earns at least the standard federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. When President Joe Biden was still running for reelection, he called for eliminating the lower tipped minimum wage and increasing the minimum wage for all workers.<\/p>\n
Any change to the taxation of tipped income would require an act of Congress \u2014 where there appears to be some bipartisan support for the idea. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) introduced legislation in June called the No Tax on Tips Act, which would exempt tips from federal income tax. The proposal received the backing of Nevada\u2019s two Democratic senators, Jacky Rosen and Catherine Cortez Masto.<\/p>\n
The Budget Lab, a nonpartisan policy research center affiliated with Yale University, analyzed the bill and concluded it would not have a large impact on the U.S. workforce. It said \u201ca meaningful share\u201d of tipped workers \u2014 representing less than 3 percent of all employment in the United States \u2014 already pay no federal income tax because they earn less than federal minimums.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis suggests that the direct effect of the bill on the workforce as it stands today\u2014before accounting for behavioral changes\u2014would be small,\u201d the Budget Lab analysis said. \u201cThe larger and far more uncertain effect would stem from behavioral changes incentivized by the bill, such as substitution into tipped employment and tipped income, which would increase the bill\u2019s overall cost.\u201d<\/p>\n
The presidential candidates\u2019 proposals were not heavy on details.<\/p>\n
When asked for more information at the time, a Trump spokeswoman said: \u201cPresident Trump will ask Congress to eliminate taxes on tips.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Saturday, a Harris campaign official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, made clear that her proposal \u201cwould require legislation\u201d and that it would not be a free-for-all.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs President, she would work with Congress to craft a proposal that comes with an income limit and with strict requirements to prevent hedge fund managers and lawyers from structuring their compensation in ways to try to take advantage of the policy,\u201d the official said.<\/p>\n
Julie Zauzmer Weil contributed to this report.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Vice President Kamala Harris is echoing an idea first proposed by her opponent, Donald Trump, by pledging that she would push to eliminate taxes on tips. \u201cWhen I am president, we will continue our fight for working families of America, including to raise the minimum wage and eliminate taxes on tips for service and hospitality […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":7691,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}