Kamala Harris is facing backlash for promising to eliminate taxes on tips, just two years after casting a crucial vote that gave the IRS more power to tax workers' tips.
Vice President Kamala Harris has come under scrutiny for recently adopting a campaign promise first introduced by former President Donald Trump to eliminate taxes on tips—despite having previously supported legislation that empowered the IRS to tax workers' tips.
On August 7, 2022, Harris cast the deciding vote to pass the Inflation Reduction Act, which allocated $80 billion in additional funding to the IRS. This legislation allowed the IRS to intensify efforts to track and tax tips in the service industry.
Harris’s office celebrated this vote on the second anniversary of the Act’s passage, with her social media account sharing a video of the vice president proudly casting her vote.
Following the Act’s passage, the IRS introduced the Service Industry Tip Compliance Agreement (SITCA) program in February 2023. While the IRS described SITCA as a “voluntary tip reporting program” for employers in service industries, critics argued that it was a new tool for increasing tax revenue from workers' tips. Mike Palicz of Americans for Tax Reform noted that the program's goal was to generate as much revenue as possible, contradicting promises that new IRS measures would not target individuals earning under $400,000.
Social media backlash was swift, with users accusing Harris of hypocrisy. The hashtag #CopyCatKamala trended, highlighting that Trump had first announced a similar plan to eliminate taxes on tips during a June rally in Las Vegas. Despite the backlash, Harris reiterated her pledge to eliminate taxes on tips during a campaign rally in Nevada, underscoring the irony given her previous vote that facilitated the IRS’s crackdown on tip reporting.
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