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Trump plagiarist Kamala promises not to tax tips

Posted on by angelo
Trump plagiarist Kamala promises not to tax tips

At a rally in Las Vegas on Saturday, just three weeks into his campaign, Kamala Harris ‘stole’ one of Donald Trump’s defining policy positions: his promise to abolish the federal income tax on tips If elected, right-wing social media platforms have responded by pushing #CopyCatKamala to the top of Twitter’s political trends list, while tax-savvy observers have sighed, knowing Politics is riddled with drawbacks.

Harris not only stole the idea, She I even copied Trump’s choice of where to announce it.as the former president also revealed in Las Vegas on June 9. That makes sense, given the high proportion of voters in that tourist-heavy city who work in tipped jobs.

Trump quickly took to Truth Social to ridicule Harris, who parroted his proposition, and cast doubt on his seriousness:

From a purely retail policy perspective, Trump’s proposal was brilliant because it outperformed Democrats by directly addressing low-income and working-class people.Rather than challenge this position, the Harris team decided to simply neutralize her advantage for Trump by removing it as a differentiating factor at the polls.

Yet, as tech entrepreneur and investor David Sacks noted on X: “The whole narrative of the Harris campaign is that she represents something fresh and new. She just broke that by blatantly copying Trump’s policy that “tips are not taxed.”

And with no Biden-Harris administration accomplishments to draw on, Harris and her aides resorted to plagiarism. At the same time, the mainstream media is turning a blind eye to the fact that she has not given a single impromptu interview since announcing her candidacy.

Before Harris joined the movement, Nevada’s two senators — both Democrats — expressed their own support for the concept. Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz has introduced a “No-Tip Tax Act” to make the idea a reality, and Florida Republican Rep. Byron Donalds has proposed a companion bill in the House, while Reps. Thomas Massie and Matt Gaetz have proposed a “No-Tip Tax Act of 2024” with varying details.

Although the concept sounds good, its actual application could have a disappointing effect on the working class and some unintended consequences for many others. As Alex Muresianu, a senior policy analyst at the Tax Foundation, wrote in July:

“The policy would be poorly targeted at low and middle incomes.given the relatively small share of the population working in tipped occupations. Worse still, the exemption itself and all the added safeguards add to the complexity of the tax code overall.”

Only 2.5% of American workers earn tips, and only 5% of the bottom quartile of wage earners do, Muresianu noted, citing work from the Yale Budget Lab. Many tipped workers pay little or no federal income tax, through the standard deduction and credits like the child tax credit and the earned income tax credit (EITC).

For those who earn enough to pay federal income tax, The “no tip tax” idea is another example of politicians picking winners and losers.with a waitress earning $34,000 getting a huge boost while a cashier with the same total income is left out.

Source: Tax Foundation “Frustrated with tips? No tip tax could make things worse”

This brings us to an important question about the specifics of politics: What taxes would tips be exempt from? Under the Cruz-Donalds “No Tax On Tips Act,” tips would be exempt from federal income tax but would remain subject to the payroll tax that funds Social Security and Medicare. The Massie-Gaetz plan would exempt tips from both types of government theft.

Assuming, wrongly, that tax-free tips would not change the behavior of labor market participants, the cost of the proposal could be about $107 billion over 10 years. earning some type of income at least tax-free will provide a powerful incentive to move compensation in that direction, including many professions for which tipping is currently non-existent.

“One could imagine a scenario in which, for example, highly paid lawyers or accountants would start receiving a portion of their income in the form of voluntary tips,” Muresianu warned. Congress could try to prevent this by imposing income limits and other restrictions on the exemption, but that would only further complicate an already byzantine tax code. An increase in the standard deduction would provide a simpler and fairer solution to ease the tax burden on the working class.

If all of this isn’t enough to make you hesitate to say “no tax on tips,” Think of all the other places—dentist offices, auto repair shops, florists, grocery stores—where you might have a cashier operating one of these touch screens. and asks you to choose the amount of tip you wish to give.

Good point…

Another scathing joke.

Next thing you know…

What else will Harris plagiarize before the September 10 debate with Trump?

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