It was a hot June day during the 2024 campaign when then-former President Donald Trump held a rally at Sunset Park in Las Vegas and made what would be one of his most famous campaign promises.
“So 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,” Trump said. “Because when I get to office, we are going to not charge taxes on tips, people making tips.”
Trump was right: Tip earners in Las Vegas and elsewhere immediately embraced the idea, if not the president himself. Budget hawks are more wary; the Tax Foundation estimates not taxing tips as income could cost the treasury $118 billion over the next decade, and even more if the exemption were applied to payroll taxes.
The idea was so popular, Democrats immediately jumped on it. Then-Vice President Kamala Harris echoed the promise. Nevada Democrats signed on, too.
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After Trump was elected, he doubled down, coming to Las Vegas for a January rally to repeat his pledge. He said the popularity of the idea was the reason he won Nevada in November. (Trump lost the state in the 2016 and 2020 elections.)
Democrats haven’t forgotten, either: Congressman Steven Horsford, D-Nevada, has a bill that would lift taxes on tips, albeit with some safeguards.
Horsford’s measure would install an income cap, impose rules so that high-wage earners couldn’t dodge taxes by claiming their wages as tips, and abolish the sub-minimum wage that allows some businesses to pay workers as little as $2.13 per hour.
That wage, which does not exist in Nevada, is premised on the theory that tips will make up the difference between the sub-minimum wage and the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.
But despite the bipartisan support, neither Horsford’s bill nor a Republican plan that would simply end taxes on tips has advanced in Congress.
“The longer we wait, the more it seems like it’s not going to happen,” said Heather Lind, a busser at the Aria. “Right now, it seems like it’s not going to happen, but, I mean, it would change people’s lives if it did.”
Abel Garcia spoke to tipped workers in Las Vegas to learn what no taxes on tips would mean for them.
Lind knows what she’s talking about. Before moving to Las Vegas, she worked in Texas and made just $2.13 an hour before tips. She said workers have to have multiple jobs, are always stressed and can’t even consider buying a home.
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“It’s frustrating. It’s demoralizing,” she said. “That’s all you’re worth is $2 an hour? And it’s literally you’re living off your tips. So if a table doesn’t tip, you don’t get paid for your work.”
That’s precisely why Horsford and other Democrats are trying to attach a sub-minimum wage repeal to any legislation that ends taxes on tips. And it’s why the Culinary Union Local 226 is backing Horsford’s plan, but also looking to hold Trump to his promise.
“We’re waiting to see whether Trump’s going to keep his word on this. He needs to,” says Ted Pappageorge, the union’s secretary-treasurer. “But that’s only part of the equation. There’s not going to be anything moving forward just on taxes, on tips, and we were clear about that.”
WATCH: Here's what President Trump said about his "No Tax on Tips" promise on Inauguration Day
Pappageorge, who earned tips when he worked as a busser, a barback and a bartender early in his career, says any legislation on tip taxes has to address the sub-minimum wage, which he calls “just criminal.”
“So when it comes to working-class issues, we think that that’s what needs to be tackled at the federal level also, and we are going to fight tooth and nail to make sure that Democrats and Republicans tackle working-class, kitchen-table issues, and especially the cost of living,” Pappageorge says.
But Republican activist Chuck Muth, who earned just more than $2 per hour in his days working at a restaurant, says insisting on a repeal of the sub-minimum wage might be the thing that kills no taxes on tips in general.
“The restaurant owners, you’re paying $2, paying $5 an hour, let’s say they really increased it,” Muth said. “But the minimum wage here is somewhere around $15, $12 [per hour]. That comes directly out of the restaurant owner’s pocket. Now, if you’re a big, huge chain, it doesn’t affect you so much. If you’re a small mom and pop, going from $5 an hour plus tips to $15 an hour plus tips is a whole different story. It could put businesses out of business because of that.”
Muth attributes the delay to negotiations over a budget deal that includes extending President Trump’s first-term tax cuts, a deal that is still in the works. But he predicts it will happen, and likely before summer.
Why? He says Democrats can’t be seen as opposing no taxes on tips, even without the sub-minimum wage provisions, because they don’t want the issue used against them on the 2026 campaign trail.
“If the Republicans dig their feet and say no, here’s what we’re going to do, I think you’re going to find more than enough Democrats who cannot politically take the chance of voting against the bill,” Muth says. “There will be more than enough Democrats to pass in both the Senate and the House.”
Pappageorge says eliminating taxes on tips in general would be a gain for workers, although he suggests that Democratic votes for the idea could be assured by including the sub-minimum wage repeal provision in any bill.
Meanwhile, workers like Lind wait and watch, seeing President Trump crack down on immigration, impose tariffs and work to eliminate diversity programs in the public and private sectors, fulfilling other promises on Trump’s campaign agenda.
“Yeah, because it seems like the bad things, we’re going to get them done, but then our promises like no tax on tips, we’re just going to take our time and work on it,” Lind said. “So it’s frustrating.
This article was written by Steve Sebelius for the Scripps News Group in Las Vegas.
