Harris pledges to work to end taxes on tips for service industry employees, echoing Trump vow
2 years ago by Beaver to c/politics
and now the employee's are going to be asking for more tips instead of wage, so they pay less tax.
You think everyone one asking for a tip at the cashier is bad now?
Wait till they put this in.
You think everyone one asking for a tip at the cashier is bad now?
Yeah, this will just make it even more prevalent for sure.
I think the proliferation of tips at almost every register instead of being limited to full service has been bad since the trend started.
In my state restaurants pay the federal tipped minimum of just over 2 dollars an hour. Their entire income is based on tips, and until they are required to be paid a living wage, tips are a necessary evil. I tip them well because I know they are getting screwed on their paychecks more than any other job.
Keep in mind that cash tips tend to not be taxed, which means less going into social security, medicare/medicaid, and other government services. It is still income! But when it was mostly cash it was effectively tax free.
Now that cards are prevalent it is getting taxed, and this 'no tax on tips' bullshit instead of requiring a living wage just benefits business. It is a counterproductive 'fix' and fuck tipping culture altogether.
You know what the worst outcome of non-taxed tips will be? The fucking wealthy tipping each other tax free to move money around. That is what it will end up being in a couple decades because that is consistent with every other similar 'fix' that just avoids requiring a living wage.
Where I'm at it's automatics, for restaurant jobs 10% of the bill is calculated as additional income for the employee who's got their name on the receipt, if they want to add more to their taxes it's up to them but otherwise income is income is income and people need to pay taxes on theirs.
In Oregon, even tipped workers make the state minimum wage, but what that wage is varies depending on location.
Portland metro has the highest, it just went up on 7/1 to $15.95.
Other population centers like Salem, Eugene, Roseburg, Bend, Medford, and tourist spots on the coast have a lower rate of $14.70.
The rural areas where there are more meth labs and cows than people are at $13.70.
Map:
You call that a living wage? In Washington the minimum is $16.28 statewide, including tipped labor, and it's $19.97 in Seattle.
What's wild to me is that the cost of a meal is the same as in places like Pennsylvania where a waiter can be paid as little as $2.83/hr.
Almost like the cost is set by the market, and the owners will cut wages as low as they're allowed to simply to take more for themselves.
No sales tax here so the wage can be lower. :)
Because it is established by a state law.
I'd rather not further cement tips as a fundamental part of our economic system. It's gotten so stupid to the point where you get asked for a tip before any service has even occurred and then the "service" is often just counter service which used to not be tipped. By not taxing this income, you're encouraging more income to be paid through tips to avoid taxes. When you're making all these little exemptions and special cases, maybe it's time to rethink the fundamental system so that it works better as a base case rather than having all these poorly-applied bandaids.
Anything to not pay people a living wage.
This will be the gateway to removing tipped minimum wage and eventually minimum wage. People often forget it is not just the employee that pays taxes on tips, but also the employer. This will also hurt an already struggling SSI system. I'd really like to see a detailed breakdown of a 10 year outlook on this plan.
This isn't progress. It is actively incentiving having compensation be tips in the tax code.
Yeah, it really seems like it will compound the issue.
Politics is funny, like an oversized truck driven by an oversized grandma whose reflexes have slowed with time. The truck is unwieldy due to its size, and the driver often unable to see over the steering wheel until there is a bump that causes her to glance at more of the road than she's used to seeing. Even when Grandma does react, the truck is slow to move, and if it moves quickly it runs the risk of tipping over.
We do need bigger change. That change will NOT happen overnight, too much damage has been done. What we need to do is walk back the worst damage, reinforce codes and laws to stop them being overturned by holiday worshipping dick heads, tackle creating a foundation to work off of, and then work towards larger, more meaningful change. In that order. Maybe swap around the middle as needed if blocked by certain justices.
Every single inch will be fought for. Every real change challenged. Harris and the party she hopefully recreates will need our support. Even Old Man Willow Biden bowed when we sang our song loudly enough, together.
But this is not an improvement, this is dividing the middle and poor classes into two categories from a taxation perspective, those who get all their earnings from their employer and those who get some from their employer plus some from clients as tip, your friends could have the same total income but pay 10k less in taxes because half of it is tip.
This is stepping backwards. It actively incentivizes companies to not pay a liveable wage because tipped income doesn't get taxed.
I just tried fixing the typo and fucking autocorrect changed it back four times before it gave up and accepted that "Incentivizes" is a word.
Up until I wrote this post, when it took another 4 tries...
Maybe we should talk about the history behind taxing tips...and Social Security checks. Hint: it was Ronald Reagan and he raised them to pay for cutting taxes for the wealthy and corporations
It always comes back to Reagan. This is what happens when you elect an actor celebrity with fucking active dementia to office. He becomes a useful tool to enact policy that the general public does not benefit from because he can remember the lines and deliver it in a package that they are willing to swallow.
Let's not do it again.
So many people worshipped this fucking asshole for decades. All it takes to impress a large number of Americans is a couple of cruel quips.
Because, in the vast majority of cases, those who are getting tips don't even get guaranteed standard minimum wage, but something substantially lower. Most of the time, these are people who are going to get an EIC anyway, so just let them keep it in the first place.
Most of them don't already. They just don't report cash tips on their taxes. This was a cheap way for Trump to gain votes, so Harris went along with it.
So much that is wrong with our country now was put into motion by that shitstain and his cadre.
This is utter nonsense. Outlaw tips and make them subject to normal minimum wage.
Looks like many haven't read the article before commenting. While both candidates have a proposal about the same topic, the methodology of implementing this seems to differ greatly.
The reaction in the comments appears to reflect more of the potential outcome of the Trump plan, though the Trump plan seems to mainly be some cobbled together bits of some other Republican proposals.
From the article, the Harris plan goes along with a minimum wage increase and an income cap so higher wage workers can't collect tax free "tips" in lieu of taxable income.
I also looked up some implications of elimination of taxed tips and found this article that goes into some numbers and shows how raising the standard deduction to make more workers, not just tipped workers, exempt from income tax and benefit many more people. I thought that was interesting and provided more seemingly useful info than either candidates' campaign promises.
That's another fine suggestion.
The numbers didn't really look in line for today's incomes, and from what I can tell from this, tax brackets for anything but the highest earners haven't changed other than an inflation adjustment since the 80s.
I'll guess if you're non-US, you're also getting things for your taxes such as healthcare and other services. For us, it's essentially a la carte pricing, so for many of these people in the lower tax brackets, healthcare is much more than taxes.
The bottom 50% of earners pay about $700/yr in federal tax. State and local taxes, property tax, school tax, and sales tax on top of that. "Average" income tax is $15,000, only due to wealth disparity. The bottom 50% pay less than 2.5% of all income tax.
Average healthcare cost is around $14,000/yr, so even for solidly middle-class people, healthcare costs are the same or higher than paid taxes, so that is probably much closer to, if not more than you may be paying.
Paying tax is a civic responsibility. The real pain comes from not feeling like you get what you pay for. I've no issue with coughing up some cash for safe roads and food inspectors, but when we have bridges collapsing and healthcare isn't considered a human right, it makes for some discontentment.
This is just federal income tax and doesn't count tax contributions towards medicare and social security (which is capped after a certain level, so someone making $1 million a year pays the same toward social security as someone making the cap which is currently around $160k). It also doesn't count state income taxes.
The us also has a $14,600 standard deduction that effectively adds a 0% bracket and increases the lower thresholds by that amount (people in the higher thresholds would probably itemize, decreasing their effective tax even further).
The IRS does index the tax brackets for inflation.
Also, that table does not include state taxes.
There is a lot more to it than the table. I think it was OP's article mentioned that there were bills circulating to eliminate the state income tax on tips as well as just the federal.
I mentioned some of the other taxes in my other replies a bit, but other than paying taxes, I'm not much of an expert. Plus if most people couldn't be bothered to read the original article, I'm not going to look up a bunch more data they won't read. 😁
Our taxes could be worse, but they could also be much better. I don't know if these tip tax plans will do much, as it's <3% of people making tipped income according to the article if I'm remembering it right from yesterday. Something that would help the bottom 50% of earners seems like it would be worth the effort instead, instead of cementing tip culture as a substitute for fair wages, but that's just my opinion.
So the title is misleading?
It's just a title, it says what the article is about, but it can't say everything. But when everyone comments based on the title and not the article, we risk creating misinformation.
Trump and Harris can both say we should not tax tips, but if that's the end of the story from Trump, but it's part of a multi-pronged approach, that's what we need to be sharing and commenting on.
Everyone's points about tipped jobs being exploitative are correct, but that isn't what the article is about. If we just take it as Harris and Trump both want to do the same thing, that's a half truth, and that is what many of these comments perpetuate. Both sides or this are not the same, and it does a disservice to us all to treat it as such.
Having a more descriptive title can help, like if it said "Harris presents competing plan for removing tax on tips," but it is somewhat redundant as they wrote the entire rest of the article about it. I feel this is why we include the article with the post, and not just the title, no? 😉
I feel I'm sounding a bit harsh, which isn't my intent, but it irks me when I can go through a comment section and see just about everyone has missed the point.
Ok. Got it. Sounds like a misleading title.
This sounds like a reason for companies to rely even more on tipping to compensate their workers... How about instead we make the companies pay the taxes on worker income earned through tipping? Then we can finally do away this ludicrous system we're all pressured to abide by.
Bingo, if they don't have to report tips every employer is going to say minimums and say they must be lying if it's more or less.
Wait... Why wouldn't tipped employees pay taxes on that part of their income? Or am I not understanding what they mean?
I worked for tip for over a decade and to me it's perfectly normal that I would pay taxes on my earnings, especially when I had colleagues that didn't work for tip with about the same total income and taxes would be taken from their paycheque automatically, why would I not pay taxes on half my income if they had to?
Until Reagan there wasn't any tax on tips because it was considered gifts, not income. The word 'gratuity' still reflects that.
Not much of a gift anymore when everyone expects a minimum of -- what is it now -- 25%? The expected minimum percentage keeps increasing as people endlessly grandstand about the amount they pay because of how much workers depend on tips for their income. Then there's shame at play if you don't comply, with some thinking it's okay to mess with the food if one doesn't pay the expected minimum "gift". It's really just extortion at that point.
If I gave you $100 as a birthday gift, would you expect to claim it as income?
Is my birthday work that I accomplish in order to earn money?
I don't know how you can think that a gift is the same as remuneration. Meet the workers after their shift to give them a hundred if you want it to be a gift, but if you're giving it to them as compensation for the work they've accomplished while they're on duty then it's income.
It's not remuneration though, it's literally money I already paid taxes on that I'm giving to a server as a thank you. I'm not their employer.
The salary they're being paid by their employer is money the employer paid taxes on that the employer is giving to the employee to compensate them for the work they've accomplished, if they hadn't accomplished that work the employer wouldn't be giving them that money just like you wouldn't be giving tip to that person if they hadn't accomplished work for you.
You're arguing in favor of creating two classes of lower income people, those who pay taxes on all their income and those who pay taxes on part of their income only and in some if not most cases it's the majority of their income that would be tax free.
Hell, just the fact that their base salary is lower BECAUSE they get tips is proof that it's considered to be part of their income, if they were paid the same base salary as anyone else and everyone could get tips at the client's discretion you might have a very weak argument, but right now you simply don't.
Just one of the many hundreds of things he talked about doing and then never brought up again.
Cool. Now let service workers get paid a living wage. Then set the minimum wage to a calculated value based on the rate of inflation and regional cost of living, instead of the idiotic fixed value system. $15/hr is at least 10 years too late.
But that would leave the elites with less money to be trickle down to the economy. Don't you see the flaws in your proposal?
That's nice. But she needs to get on with raising the minimum wage to a living wage and pegging it to inflation/COL.
Anything except exactly that is a waste of time and resources. A PR stunt.
Big difference is she is likely serious. Im not sure how I feel. These are not the highest paid things but I hate encouraging tips over regular reliable pay.
Lol is this your first American election?
Cause we're in the phase where all of the candidates blatantly lie to us and tell what we want to hear in order to secure our votes.
Remember when Obama was going to codify Roe v Wade? Or when Trump was going to build a wall and make Mexico pay for it?
those two things are not remotely comparable. obama said he would sign the freedom of choice act which never went to his desk:
"The bills were referred to the Judiciary Committees of the respective Houses. Neither bill received further action in the 108th Congress. The bills were reintroduced on April 19 2007 in the 110th Congress (H.R. 1964/S. 1173), but, like their predecessors, were referred to committee without further action. "
making mexico pay for united states infrastructure is something that could never happen unless we went to war with them. Its a blatant lie from the get go.
As far as taxing tips its about intent. Harris would do it the same as obama would sign the freedom of choice but she is not likely to put all resources to get congress to change the tax code in that way. so she gets a bill she can sign. trump on the other hand is just saying something he thinks people want to hear and would not sign a bill with it in there if it had lets say raised corporate taxes or such.
Why is it bullshit? Just because your income comes from clients instead of your boss doesn't mean it's not income.
Hell, the US became the US because of the "no taxation without representation" thing, should people who work for tip not be eligible to vote?
So why choose the wrong solution then? Tax billionaires fairly. Don't arbitrarily make the waiter not pay taxes but the cook in the back has to? That's not equal, that's not fair.
I would be thrilled if Harris announced taxes on Wall Street shenanigans.
But I highly doubt it
The difference is, I believe her.
That doesn’t make any sense, it’s part of income
I'm thinking in the political game theory, it makes sense because it's going to force Republicans to either support it or oppose it, either of which will make them look silly as trump supporters.
The revenue losses would need to be made up in another way, which would ideally be closing loopholes and more dependably taxing the wealthy. That is assuming that the segment of revenue from tips is even substantial enough to matter.
Anyway it's going to force the Trump camp to respond. And pretty much every time you do that it provokes more unforced errors from them because they are clueless.
It’s just going to let him parallel his abortion stance where he claims Dems are for his positions until he does them
Just another note, Biden has also mentioned he would sign this into law. This would be even better for Dems than Kamala's promise. For an election cycle, it would basically delete any value of Trump's promise to tip earners.
I've seen "no tax on tips" on Trump billboards on my area. Clearly Trump thinks it's an important issue. Having made them waste money would be a hilarious win, also preventing undecided voters from turning out for Trump on this single-issue is a clear strategic design.
I think we might start to see CEOs working for tips.
They would totally do that. It's not far from the $1 salary with millions in stock incentive scam.
Typically they do, just they call it a "performance bonus" and it's baked into their contract
A CEOs income really isn't what they're avoiding paying taxes on.
I would rather outlaw asking for a tip. And force all restaurants to pay a fair wage and price that into the food price.
This is dumb but politically necessary. Big issue in Nevada, good signifier of who is "on the side of the working person."
But specifically making tips non-taxable encourages more employment to be tip-based.
Makes more sense to cut taxes for these same people by expanding the tax bracket that goes untaxed (currently first $11k).
Why don't they just fix the minimum wage problems and stop allowing tipped jobs to have a lower minimum wage. Also stop letting million plus "charity" organizations employ disabled workers at $0.25. ( Goodwill is a scam)
Good luck getting a car/home loan when your salary looks like minimum wage (as a former coworker who didn't claim her tips found out). The whole tipping thing is idiotic. Pay a loving wage to workers.
Edit: also a living wage. I can't type on mobile apparently
"She stole my idea!"
"Even a broken clock is right twice a day, we're still waiting for your second time..."
Twitter and reddit are on fire with indignation that Harris DARE consider even one of their high priest's ideas viable.
" . . . echoing trump vow"
FY AP.
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https://apnews.com/article/harris-walz-nevada-trump-las-vegas-ac21118dbb24290e46d32ad9669507d4
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Tips are bullshit and workers should be required to paid a living wage.
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