Because, in the vast majority of cases, those who are getting tips don’t even get guaranteed standard minimum wage, but something substantially lower. Most of the time, these are people who are going to get an EIC anyway, so just let them keep it in the first place.
Doesn’t make any sense, income is income is income, if it’s a remuneration you get for work you accomplish your should pay taxes on it. You’ve got waiters making 100k a year (before you say that doesn’t happen, I worked with a bunch of them) that would pay taxes on 15k and the rest would be tax free while you make 60k a year and pay taxes on everything?
And, if we get rid of tipping and pay them a fair wage then all of the smoke and mirrors / abuse goes away. Further, maybe you shouldn’t be paying much if any taxes on 60k/year…
Quit falling into the logic trap that this is a fight between those who don’t get enough. The rich need to be paying a hell of a lot more and the poor need to be paying a hell of a lot less.
You’re mixing issues there, this is exactly what eliminating taxes on certain forms of income would lead to, fights between people of the lower classes, I can tell you from experience because at my previous job we were in this exact situation, salaried employees knew that tipped employees didn’t pay taxes on everything they got and would work against them when negotiating to renew their collective agreement instead of joining hands and fighting against the employer.
The fact that rich people don’t pay their fair share is a separate issue entirely and even if then did it wouldn’t make it ok to eliminate taxes on certain work related forms of incomes instead of adjusting tax brackets.
