Vice President Kamala Harris has found herself embroiled in controversy following her recent campaign promise to “eliminate taxes on tips for service and hospitality workers.”
The pledge, made during a recent rally in Nevada, has drawn criticism for exactly copying a proposal previously announced by former President Donald Trump.
What’s worse is that Harris was the tie-breaking vote as Senate president on a 2022 bill that allowed the IRS to track tips and hunt for people who forgot to report.
“I know Culinary 226 is in the house. And, the culinary union, as everyone in Nevada knows, they have helped lead the way in our country for workers’ rights and workers dignity,” Harris said.
“It is my promise to everyone here, 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,” she said.
Critics were quick to point out that Trump had made the exact promise in June during a Las Vegas rally, where he declared his administration would “not charge taxes on tips.”
Trump later reiterated this stance at a Michigan event, saying, “Tell your waiters and waitresses, anybody else getting tips, ’cause they’re… a lot of people get tips. Car attendants and caddies, and a lot of different people get tips. We are not going to tax tips – the tax immediately is coming off.”
Trump himself quickly weighed in on the controversy.
On his Truth Social platform, Trump 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!”
Adding to the controversy is Harris’s past voting record. In 2022, she cast the tie-breaking vote to pass the Inflation Reduction Act, which provided additional funding to the IRS — funding that subsequently led to increased efforts to track and tax tips in the service industry, a move that some critics view as hypocritical.
“There’s no reason they’d be issuing guidance on how to crack down on this if it was only going to end up being voluntary. Ultimately, the goal is to go and grab as much revenue as possible and from whoever they can,” Mike Palicz of Americans for Tax Reforms said after Harris’ vote to pass the bill.
As the 2024 presidential race heats up, this controversy is just the latest to emerge from the Democratic Party presidential candidate over consistency and honesty.
The Harris campaign has yet to respond to these criticisms.