No taxes on tips means higher take-home pay, but would only be a stopgap solution to a much more intractable and pernicious problem: raising the minimum wage.
“That’s a key piece of this,” said Ted Pappageorge, secretary-treasurer of the Culinary Workers Union Local 226, which endorsed Harris’s plan and represents 60,000 hotel and restaurant workers in Nevada. “It’s like two sides to the same coin.”
That’s why the union has thrown its support behind Harris’s proposal, he added. “You’re not hearing Trump or any Republicans talk about [raising the minimum wage], and they probably won’t, but it’s a big piece of the picture.”
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Removing taxes on tips would further cement that idea, according to Pappageorge—and might even make the case for raising wages clearer. “If you’re going to argue that tips are a gift, or they’re different than wages, you really can’t make an argument for paying somebody $2.13 an hour,” he said.