The Trump Deduction: A simpler path to tax-free tips and overtime
The current version of President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act delivers on one of his core campaign promises – exempting tips and overtime pay from federal taxation.
But he could score a victory on this promise in a more beautiful way by creating a new “Trump Tips and Overtime Deduction” that would be available exclusively to workers who receive tips or overtime pay.
Tax-free tips and overtime are politically popular, but messy and problematic in almost every other way imaginable.
They are exceedingly complicated from an administrative perspective, as employers and employees will undoubtedly go to great lengths to reclassify earnings as tipped or overtime pay. This is going to create a nightmare for the IRS, which is already one of the most incompetent agencies in the federal government.
TAX-FREE OVERTIME COULD BE MIDTERM MAGIC FOR GOP
On top of that, these are budget-busting policies at a time of nearly unprecedented levels of red ink. According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, “no tax on tips” and “no tax on overtime” are scored at a combined $164 billion over 10 years; however, that number is somewhat misleading as the policies are scheduled to be in place for only four years. If they are extended across the 10-year window – which is very likely – they could easily reduce revenue collections by half a trillion dollars.
That’s an enormous amount of revenue, especially considering that these policies are not likely to generate substantial economic growth or job creation. These resources would be better utilized reducing our massive federal debt or enacting across-the-board, pro-growth tax policy.
The “Trump Tips and Overtime Deduction” is a much better way to give President Trump a resounding win on one of his campaign promises. This ingenious policy would not only provide much-needed relief to working-class Americans, it would also do so without overcomplicating the tax code or heaping enormous amounts of additional debt on future generations.
The Trump deduction is simple. It is a bonus deduction of $1,000 available to all workers who are eligible for overtime or who work in positions that customarily receive tips. That’s it. There would be no added complexity involved while completing your taxes and no need to quantify what income is derived from overtime or tips versus via wages. You wouldn’t even need to demonstrate that you earned $1,000 or more in eligible pay. If you meet the requirements for the Trump Deduction, you simply check a box on your tax form and collect the extra $1,000 deduction.
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With 6 million taxpayers reporting tip income and 80 million working hourly and eligible for overtime, an enhanced standard deduction would be a tax cut of around $13 billion a year, compared to the more complicated $45 billion a year currently projected.
The mechanics for the federal government are also pretty straightforward. As with the current legislative text of the current “big, beautiful bill,” the Treasury secretary would publish a list of traditionally tipped occupations. If you work in one of these categories, you check a box on your tax form.
Workers who are nonexempt under the Fair Labor Standards Act – that includes most full-time workers who make $35,568 or less – can check the corresponding box on their tax forms.
If either box is checked, you get the Trump Deduction. It’s a simple, beautiful way to deliver pro-worker tax relief without complicating the tax code or busting the budget.
But perhaps most importantly, it provides a huge win for Trump and his campaign promise to end taxes on tips and overtime pay.
