Workers

Huffington Post - Donald Trump has been making a big promise to the nation’s service workers at his recent campaign rallies: If they send him back to the White House for another term, he’ll see to it that restaurant servers and other tipped workers no longer pay taxes on their gratuities. “No more taxes on tips,” the former president declared in Detroit on Saturday, reiterating a pledge he first made in Nevada earlier this month.

But there are at least two reasons not to take Trump’s pitch all that seriously. For starters, not even Republicans were ready to embrace the tip idea after Trump personally pitched it to them during meetings last week. The proposal would add cost and complexity to GOP tax plans for next year, when Congress will grapple with a host of expiring tax cuts for households and businesses.

“I think that has more to do with the Electoral College in Nevada than any other policy that’s been vetted,” Rep. Richard Neal (Mass.), the top Democrat on the House tax committee, told HuffPost.

The other cause for skepticism: Trump’s own record as president. When he had the chance to help restaurant workers, Trump instead pursued a controversial policy to give employers more control over their workers’ tips. The proposal was designed to allow restaurants to “pool” their servers’ gratuities and redistribute them to non-tipped workers like dishwashers and cooks. But it was written in such a way that it appeared nothing could stop businesses from appropriating the tips for themselves.