Tips, overtime, Social Security: A look at Donald Trump's no-tax pledges and what they might cost

[October 07, 2024]  By MEG KINNARD

Donald Trump has pledged to end taxes on everything from tips to Social Security and overtime pay if he's elected to the White House again. But he hasn't detailed how he would fund those ideas and avoid creating a huge budget shortfall, beyond arguing he will usher in an economic boom.

He argues his ideas would improve Americans’ personal financial standing and the overall U.S. economy. A debate about the tax code will be a dominant legislative issue next year given that tax cuts Trump signed in 2017 will be set to expire. If he’s elected again, Trump could push Congress to enact some or all of his proposals, though that might be difficult if Democrats end up in control of either the House or the Senate.

Estimates from outside economic analyses of the costs of the various tax cuts ranged between nearly $6 trillion and $10 trillion over 10 years, depending on which ideas become policy and how they’re implemented.

A look at Trump's various tax-related ideas:

‘No tax on tips’

In June, Trump announced his plan to exclude workers' tips from federal taxes, saying he got the idea from a waitress at his Las Vegas hotel.

“To those hotel workers and people who get tips, you are going to be very happy, because when I get to office we are going to not charge taxes on tips, people making tips,” Trump said, adding: "We’re going to do that right away, first thing in office.”

Trump made the announcement in Nevada, a key battleground state with six electoral votes and home to the highest concentration of tipped workers in the country. Nevada has an average of 25.8 waiters and waitresses per 1,000 jobs. President Joe Biden won the state in 2020, but the Trump campaign hopes to put it in play this fall.

Trump has not specified whether he wants to exempt tips from just income taxes or from the payroll tax — which funds Medicare and Social Security — as well.

Vice President Kamala Harris has echoed Trump's call for no taxes on tips, making a pledge that would apply to hospitality and service industry workers at a Nevada rally of her own two months after her GOP opponent's announcement.

Social Security tax cuts

Trump has also pledged tax cuts for older Americans, posting on Truth Social in July that “SENIORS SHOULD NOT PAY TAX ON SOCIAL SECURITY!”

The challenge is that taxes on Social Security benefits help to pay for the program. The loss of revenue could mean that Social Security would be unable to pay out its full benefits in 2033, two years ahead of the current estimate, according to Brendan Duke of the liberal Center for American Progress.

According to the Social Security Administration, recipients must currently pay federal income taxes if combined income — 50% of the benefit amount plus any other earned income — is higher than $25,000 annually if filing individually, or $32,000 if filing jointly.

While in the Senate, Harris co-sponsored a bill that would have required the wealthy to pay higher Social Security taxes and made benefits more generous for some. The White House has said her views on the program are similar to Biden's, but Harris hasn't talked in detail about Social Security during her campaign.

Overtime taxes

Trump has also said he would support legislation to eliminate taxes on overtime pay.

“That gives people more of an incentive to work," Trump said in September at a campaign rally in Tucson, Arizona. "It gives the companies a lot, it’s a lot easier to get the people.”

Harris has not said if she would also call for cuts to taxes of overtime pay.

A supporter listens as Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign event, Sept.12, 2024, in Tucson, Ariz. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

Corporate tax rates

Trump's plans include proposed breaks for businesses, too. He's called for lowering the U.S. corporate tax rate from 21% to 15%, but only for companies that produce in the U.S.

“We’re putting America first,” Trump said. “This new American industrialism will create millions and millions of jobs.”

As president, Trump signed legislation in 2017 that cut the corporate tax rate to 21% from 35%.

Harris has said she believes that big corporations and the ultra-wealthy should pay more in taxes — including a 28% rate for corporations — and wants to use those revenues to help spur the construction of 3 million homes and offer tax breaks for parents.

SALT

Ahead of a September rally on Long Island, Trump pledged that he would “get SALT back,” suggesting he would eliminate a cap on state and local tax deductions that were part of tax cut legislation he signed into law in 2017.

The so-called SALT cap has led to bigger tax bills for many residents of New York, New Jersey, California and other high-cost, high-tax states, and is an important campaign issue in those states, particularly among those New York Republicans serving in districts Biden won.

Some Democrats have pushed to lift the $10,000 cap, a move many Republicans have said they oppose. Some, including Trump's former GOP primary foe Nikki Haley, have called for making the 2017 tax cuts permanent. Some of that notion is enshrined in Republicans' 2024 platform, although the permanence provision specifically calls out portions “that doubled the standard deduction, expanded the Child Tax Credit, and spurred Economic Growth for all Americans.”

Harris has not said that she would try to preserve Trump-era tax cuts, which are set to run out at the end of next year. But, like Biden, she has vowed not to raise taxes for Americans who earn less than $400,000 annually.

Tariffs

Angling to bring back more overseas jobs and manufacturing to the U.S., Trump has said repeatedly that he wants higher tariffs on imported goods, and has said the idea wouldn't increase inflation. He has floated the idea of a universal tariff as high as 20% on all imports and even higher tariffs on Chinese products and on U.S. companies that move factory jobs overseas.

In a recent speech at the Economic Club of New York, Trump suggested that tariffs could be used to solve seemingly unrelated challenges such as the rising cost of child care in the U.S., as part of a broader promise that tariffs can raise trillions of dollars to fund his agenda without those costs being passed along to consumers in the form of higher prices. That's a view with which many economists disagree since tariffs directly raise the prices of purchasing goods.

Particularly as it relates to the U.S. auto industry, it's a notion he called for again recently in Savannah, Georgia, where Trump said he'd put a 100% tariff on every car imported from Mexico. Calling for a “new American industrialism," Trump suggested that the only way to avoid those charges would be for an automaker to build the cars in the U.S.

Harris has described Trump's ideas for tariffs as a “sales tax” on American households that could cost a typical family roughly $4,000 annually.

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Kinnard reported from Columbia, South Carolina. Associated Press writer Josh Boak in Washington contributed to this report.

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