Josefina Hertado, a food server at a Las Vegas hotel-casino, said Tuesday that limits on the Republican version of no taxes on tips made it less beneficial than it could have been.
"I mean, I'm grateful for the no tax on tips," she said. "However, there's a cap and there's expiration so ... it really doesn't benefit, actually, you know, because I'm a single mother of four, so it really doesn't benefit."
Hertado — a Culinary Union Local 226 member for 30 years — was referring to a $25,000 cap on tipped income, essentially a tax deduction for the money she gets from customers. And the provision is set to expire in four years, a date that Hertado is tracking closely.
"Honestly, because I'm going to struggle when it expires, you know. I'm gonna have that fear, like, oh, it's coming up for expiration, like what am I gonna do next that, you know, even though I'm grateful, but it's not gonna benefit me."
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"Trump certainly started the fire, and he has to have credit for that, but at the end of the day, there's some real work to be done on this, and if we do the work, then there'll be some relief for tip earners," Pappageorge said. "I think that what we have to do is just be very vigilant and push very hard to make sure we get the best deal we can get for workers, and then we have another bite at that apple, because at the end of the day, this is temporary and it goes away in a couple years."
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"And as far as we're concerned, the Culinary Union is going to talk to Republicans, we're going to talk to independents, and we're going to talk to Democrats, and we're going to run our own members, if we don't see that politicians on the national level, and the state level, and the local level are not going to tackle what is a red-flag, five-alarm fire right now on the cost of living, the cost of groceries, the cost of rent, the cost of housing, the cost of health care."