After Beefing Up IRS Tip Enforcement, Kamala Now Claims Trump’s “No Tax on Tips” Agenda As Her Own
Why would Harris propose a policy that completely contradicts legislation she helped pass? Because she is trailing Trump in Nevada.
During a campaign rally at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas on Saturday, Vice President Kamala Harris surprised supporters by coming out against taxes on tips. She told the crowd, “When 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.” Because Las Vegas is dominated by the service and hospitality industries and tips make up a large portion of the average worker’s income, the crowd was delighted by the proposal and roared their approval.
Kamala just announced she is stealing President Trump's "NO TAX ON TIPS" proposal.
But like everything else she says, it's a pure political calculation she'll never actually do — but President Trump WILL. pic.twitter.com/8MiJ8eFreu
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) August 11, 2024
This campaign promise was outrageous for two reasons. First, because former President Donald Trump has been touting his plan to end taxes on tips for months. Her campaign stole Trump’s idea and then Harris presented it as if it were her own.
Understandably angry following Harris’s announcement, Trump quickly fired off a post on Truth Social. He wrote: “Kamala Harris, whose ‘Honeymoon’ period is ENDING, and is starting to get hammered in the Polls, just copied my NO TAXES ON TIPS Policy. The difference is, she won’t do it, she just wants it for Political Purposes! This was a TRUMP idea – She has no ideas, she can only steal from me. Remember, Kamala has proposed the LARGEST TAX INCREASE IN HISTORY – It won’t happen. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!”
Second, and what makes this situation all the more egregious, is that two years ago, the Biden-Harris administration planned to crack down on unreported tip income as part of its grand plan to maximize tax revenues. They wanted to ensure that the government received every taxpayer dollar it was entitled to and planned to track down taxpayers who were not paying their fair share. The August 2022 so-called “Inflation Reduction Act” provided $80 billion in new funding for the Internal Revenue Service.
Fox Business News host Elizabeth MacDonald explained on X that the “Biden-Harris Admin also launched a novel new IRS crackdown on tips, getting the IRS inside the door at bars & restaurants to directly monitor tips at the cash register, ‘at point-of-sale.’ She also backed the $1.7T spending legislation expecting taxpayers to report their $600 phone app transactions to the IRS without she and the Senate reading the bill (later dropped as untenable).”
Kamala Harris’s first big policy idea is to steal Trump’s “no taxes on tips,” when she backed Democrats’ $80b for more IRS audits including on tip income. The Biden-Harris Admin also launched a novel new IRS crackdown on tips, getting the IRS inside the door at bars & restaurants… pic.twitter.com/DO3Z6gKHu0
— Elizabeth MacDonald (@LizMacDonaldFOX) August 11, 2024
Great to see this new paper from the IRS on the expected revenue from the IRA investments: $80 billion investment in the IRS could raise $851 billion over the next decade. https://t.co/npMoLbn9KG
— Lawrence H. Summers (@LHSummers) February 9, 2024
The Washington Post reports that a president could not enact a “change in the taxation of tipped income” on their own. It would “require an act of Congress.” In June, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) introduced the No Tax on Tips Act. According to the Post, Nevada’s two Democratic senators, Jacky Rosen and Catherine Cortez Masto, both supported the bill.
Why would Harris propose a policy idea that completely contradicts legislation that she fully supported just two years ago?
It might be because she is trailing Trump in Nevada, a battleground state won by both Hillary Clinton in 2016 and by Joe Biden in 2020. Both won by margins of less than 2.5 points. The RealClearPolitics average of polls in the state shows that Trump is currently ahead of Harris by 3.7 points.
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Elizabeth writes commentary for The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation and a member of the Editorial Board at The Sixteenth Council, a London think tank. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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Comments
It’s good strategy. The workers won’t have heard of Trump’s proposal and it gives them a reason to turn out and vote for the woman.
As best it blunts the original proposal from DJT.
All Trump has to do is make sure they’ve heard of his proposal.
I think it’s well established what Ms. Harris is, now we’re just haggling over the price.
So far, and I could be wrong so feel free to correct me, but this is the first concrete policy position that I have heard from this woman.
Think of that for a moment. GB is on a fast track to an Islamist version of 1984. Iran promise (pinky swear this time) that they’re going to nuke Israel, China and Russia are loving the fact that instead of America being the strong horse, we’re currently led by a pair of horse’s asses and the first policy vomit that emulates from her pie hole is…
Something Donald Trump suggested weeks ago.
If this woman wins, we’re (bleep).
Kamala’s conduct is not a surprise, Dems are the party of thieves, looters and liars. Dems are the party of deplorables.
“They wanted to ensure that the government received every taxpayer dollar it was entitled to and planned to track down taxpayers who were not paying their fair share.”
It doesn’t help when you repeat the opposition’s claims in their own propaganda terms.
Of course if we adopted an 18% flat tax on all sources of income above federal minimum wage whether wages or passive income, junked capital gains tax to the waste bin alongside the estate tax and established an inheritance tax of say 5% on amounts above $1M we’d be done with ‘fair share’ arguments. The % would be the same.
The Democrat voters cannot remember what anyone said last week, much less last year.
There is no rock bottom for these Democrats. It just gets worse and worse. Why not steal a Trump policy? You have no policy ideas of your own, at least none you can campaign on. This woman may become POTUS with zero votes cast for her, zero tough scrutiny from the Press, and zero ideas on how to fix this mess that she herself has had a hand in creating. My God what has happened to our Country?
So contemptibly predictable. Whatever scant, good ideas the vile Dhimmi-crat apparatchiks proffer as their own, were shamelessly stolen from someone else.
Trump should suggest that we do it right now, since there’s bipartisan support for it. Johnson could knock out a bill and bring it up for a vote in the House by the first week in September. Challenge Kamala to get her side to bring it up for a vote in the Senate, and Biden to sign it.
Or else to stop pretending she supports this, or that she can lead even her own party.
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