Vice President Kamala Harris promised to eliminate taxes on tips for service sector employees – a campaign promise that former President Donald Trump had also made two months earlier.
Harris made the pledge Saturday night at a rally in Las Vegas, the same city where Trump introduced the idea at his own June 9 rally during the 2024 presidential campaign.
“I promise everyone here that when I am president, we will continue our fight for America’s working families,” Harris said, “including by raising the minimum wage and eliminating the tax on tips for service and restaurant workers.”
The remark drew cheers from the audience at the Thomas & Mack Center in Nevada’s most populous city, but Trump did not take it so well. In a post on Truth Social, he claimed that Harris “has no idea, she can only steal from me.”
“Kamala Harris, whose ‘honeymoon’ is coming to an end and who is slowly falling in the polls, simply copied my NO TAXES ON TIPS policy,” Trump wrote. “The difference is she won’t do it, she just wants to do it for political reasons!”
Both Harris and her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz (D-Minn.), acknowledged the presence of the Nevada-based Culinary Workers Union, which has 60,000 members, at the rally. The union had endorsed the Democratic slate the day before in a statement by Treasury Secretary Ted Pappageorge.
“Kamala has always stood up for our union and hospitality workers,” Pappageorge said. “She stood with us as we negotiated and won the best collective bargaining agreement ever, and we trust her to continue the progress of the Biden/Harris administration by delivering real results that prioritize and protect working families.”
Nevada is one of six “toss-up” states in the 2024 election cycle, according to the nonpartisan Cook Political ReportAlthough it is the least valuable state in this group with its six electoral college votes, Harris and Walz want to keep it in Democratic hands, as has been the case since 2008.
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In a five-candidate race, Harris and Trump are tied at 43% in Nevada, according to the latest poll. Independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. received 7%, followed by the Green Party’s Jill Stein at 1% and independent Cornel West at 0%.
“The road to victory runs through Nevada, and the Culinary Union will win Nevada for President Kamala Harris and Vice President Tim Walz,” Pappageorge said.
