By Kamala Harris has yet to sit down for an interview since taking the nomination from Joe Biden, but that hasn’t stopped her from adopting one of Donald Trump’s most popular tax policies.
CNN reports that Harris, who has been in office for three years, made her announcement as she prepares to lay out an economic plan later this week.
Speaking to a crowd of thousands at a Saturday rally in Las Vegas, which included members of a local culinary workers union, Harris promised to advance policies to benefit working families, pointing to the elimination of taxes on tips as an example.
“It is my promise to everyone here when I am president, we will continue our fighting for working families of America including to raise the minimum wage and eliminate taxes on tips for service and hospitality workers,” she said.
Trump, who first proposed the idea at his own Las Vegas campaign rally in June, accused Harris of copying him.
“Kamala Harris, whose ‘Honeymoon’ period is ENDING, and is starting to get hammered in the Polls, just copied my NO TAXES ON TIPS Policy,” Trump posted on his Truth Social social media platform. 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!!!”
The media, of course, revealed how biased they are in how they reported the plan when offered by Kamala Harris in comparison to how they portrayed Donald Trump when he offered the idea originally.
Only sharp-eyed readers will be able to spot the difference in the coverage of the two proposals. pic.twitter.com/h9PMWCZzDX
— Tim Murtaugh (@TimMurtaugh) August 12, 2024
Copying Trump’s plan on tips is a massive change of attitude for the vice president. Breitbart reminded readers that “on August 7, 2022, Harris cast the tie-breaking vote to pass the Inflation Reduction Act that provided $80 billion in additional funding to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which then got to work cracking down on the service industry’s reporting of tips so that they could be taxed.”
Earlier in the year, Harris proudly shared a video reminding the public that she cast the tie-breaking vote, writing, “Two years ago today, I proudly cast the tie-breaking vote to pass our Inflation Reduction Act.”
“On this vote, the yay’s are 50, the nay’s are 50. The Senate being equally divided, the vice president votes in the affirmative and the bill as amended is passed,” Harris said in the August 7, 2022, video.
Shortly after the vice president broke the tie, the IRS reported that it would begin going after tips as an easy target for the government.
At the time, Fox News reported at the time that the IRS had begun planning to come after tips. “The Service Industry Tip Compliance Agreement (SITCA) program would be a voluntary tip reporting system in which the IRS and service industry companies cooperate, according to the announcement Monday. As part of the proposal, the IRS will give the public until early May to provide feedback on the program before implementing it.
‘Those 87,000 new IRS agents that you were promised would only target the rich,’ tweeted Mike Palicz, federal affairs manager at Americans for Tax Reform. ‘They’re coming after waitresses’ tips now.’
Among the program’s features, the agency lists ‘monitoring of employer compliance based on actual annual tip revenue and charge tip data from an employer’s point-of-sale system, and allowance for adjustments in tipping practices from year to year.’
It also states that participating employers would provide the IRS with annual reports, would receive protection from liability related to ‘rules that define tips as part of an employee’s pay’ and would have the flexibility to implant internal tip reporting procedures “’in accordance with the section of the tax law that requires employees to report tips to their employers.’”
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