In a move that’s ruffled feathers across the political landscape, Vice President Kamala Harris is facing fierce backlash for what critics are calling a blatant attempt to mimic former President Donald Trump’s campaign promise of Tax-Free Tips.
The criticism comes on the heels of the Biden-Harris administration’s previous efforts to crack down on tip reporting, leaving many to question Harris’s sincerity in her newfound stance.
The controversy erupted after Harris, during a campaign rally in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Saturday, announced her support for the elimination of taxes on tips for service and hospitality workers. “It is my promise to everyone here, when I am president, we will continue to fight for working families, including raising the minimum wage and eliminating taxes on tips for service and hospitality workers,” Harris declared to the crowd.
However, this pledge came off as too little, too late for many, especially considering the Biden administration’s history on the matter. Just last year, the administration rolled out a voluntary tip reporting system aimed at increasing tax compliance among service industry workers—a move widely criticized as a crackdown on hardworking Americans’ earnings.
Trump campaign political director James Blair was quick to pounce on Harris’s announcement, taking to X (formerly Twitter) to slam the vice president for what he sees as a calculated political maneuver. “Now is a good time to remind everyone that #CopyCatKamala’s administration rolled out a new enforcement program JUST LAST YEAR to collect more taxes on tips! She could stop it now… but she won’t, because she’s a dishonest fraud!” Blair posted.
The timing of Harris’s promise is particularly striking given that Trump had already laid out a similar plan earlier this summer. During a rally in Las Vegas in June, Trump vowed to eliminate taxes on tips if re-elected, positioning himself as a champion of service industry workers. “This is the first time I’ve said this, and for those hotel workers and people that get tips, you’re going to be very happy, because when I get to office, we are going to not charge taxes on tips,” Trump announced to a cheering crowd. He emphasized that the move was long overdue, highlighting how workers in the service industry have been unfairly taxed on their hard-earned tips for years.
Harris’s sudden alignment with Trump’s stance has led to widespread accusations of political opportunism. Trump himself was quick to call out Harris, accusing her of copying his idea without any genuine intention of following through. “Kamala Harris, whose ‘Honeymoon’ period is ENDING, and is starting to get hammered in the Polls, just copied my NO TAXES ON TIPS Policy,” Trump wrote on X. “The difference is, she won’t do it, she just wants it for Political Purposes! This was a TRUMP idea—She has no ideas, she can only steal from me.”
The criticism didn’t stop with Trump. Social media was ablaze with comments from conservatives and Trump supporters who lambasted Harris for her apparent flip-flop. The hashtag “#CopyCatKamala” quickly began trending, as users mocked the vice president for what they perceived as a desperate attempt to salvage her political standing amid declining poll numbers.
The backlash is further compounded by the Biden administration’s track record on the issue. Last year, the IRS, under the Biden-Harris administration, introduced the Service Industry Tip Compliance Agreement (SITCA) program. This voluntary tip reporting system was designed to increase tax compliance, but many saw it as an aggressive move against service industry workers, especially in the context of the IRS hiring 87,000 new agents.
Critics of the program, including several tax experts, argued that the initiative was a thinly veiled attempt to squeeze more revenue from middle-income families. “Washington has a spending problem, not a revenue problem,” Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., chairman of the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Tax, told Fox News Digital at the time. “Now, the IRS is going after middle-income families and working moms and dads who are just trying to make ends meet and put food on the table.”
Kelly and others have long warned that the Biden administration’s tax policies would disproportionately harm working-class Americans, and the SITCA program seemed to validate those fears. “My colleagues and I have warned for months that the IRS would start targeting hardworking Americans in the Biden administration’s quest for more taxpayer dollars. Now, we’re starting to see some of these concerns come to fruition,” Kelly added.
As Harris attempts to align herself with Trump’s popular tax proposal, the question remains: Is this a genuine policy shift, or simply a political maneuver designed to win over voters in a tight race? Critics argue it’s the latter, pointing to Harris’s history and the Biden administration’s previous policies. In a political climate where authenticity is increasingly valued, Harris’s sudden change of heart on taxing tips may do more harm than good for her campaign.
