Thread: Trump renews promise of no [federal] tax on tips

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See: Trump reiterates campaign trail promise of no tax on tips at Las Vegas rally

President Donald Trump signaled on Saturday that he would follow through on a promise he made on the campaign trail in 2024, specifically eliminating taxes on tipped wages.

Trump can end federal tax on tips by EO asserting the tax is direct and requires apportionment


The constitutional command that “direct” taxes are required to be apportioned has not been repealed by the 16th Amendment. Any tax which takes the form of a direct tax still requires it to be apportioned among the states. Our Supreme Court has confirmed this fact in a number of cases, e.g., Eisner v. Macomber 252 U.S. 189, 206 (1920): “The Revenue Act of 1916, in so far as it imposes a tax upon the stockholder because of such dividend, contravenes the provisions of article 1, 2, cl. 3, and article 1, 9, cl. 4, of the Constitution, and to this extent is invalid, notwithstanding the Sixteenth Amendment.” BROMLEY VS MCCAUGHN, 280 U.S. 124 (1929), “As the present tax is not apportioned, it is forbidden, if direct.” and more recently by Justice Roberts when he stated in the Obamacare case dealing with what is called “The shared responsibility payment” Roberts stated:

“The shared responsibility payment is thus not a direct tax that must be apportioned among the several States.”

In researching our Founder’s statements concerning direct taxes, there is a consistency in their statements that direct taxes are those assessed to the individual by government, while indirect taxes are costs added by government to things such as consumer items and privileges granted by government which individuals are free to acquired or reject.

There is no reason why Trump cannot issue an Executive Order indicating that a federal tax on tips takes the form of a direct tax and requires an apportionment, and to be in compliance with our Constitution’s command that " No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or enumeration herein before directed to be taken", a federal tax on tips will no longer be collected.

JWK

If, by calling a tax indirect when it is essentially direct, the rule of protection [apportionment] could be frittered away, one of the great landmarks defining the boundary between the nation and the states of which it is composed, would have disappeared, and with it one of the bulwarks of private rights and private property. POLLOCK v. FARMERS’ LOAN & TRUST CO., 157 U.S. 429 (1895) JUSTICE FULLER

Did you know wage earners were conned into paying a tax on earned wages under the Temporary Victory Tax of 1942 which they were not subject to?
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When the Temporary Victory Tax of 1942 was legislated, laboring class people were not taxed on their earned wages. To do so would be considered as a direct tax and would require an apportionment of the tax.

This “temporary” tax on working people’s earned wages was sold as a temporary measure, a patriotic necessity to fund the war effort. Even Hollywood’s elite got in the act and lent its hand to the FDR regime to con and pressure wage earners to start paying the Temporary Victory Tax of 1942 . . . a direct tax they were not subject to unless apportioned.

Here is an example of propaganda that was used to pressure wage earners to start paying a tax they were not constitutionally compelled to do:



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The Victory Tax of 1942 was actually repealed in 1944, but in name only, and continues to this very day under an Act titled the “Individual Income Tax Act of 1944”. Keep in mind that wage earners were first conned and pressured into paying a “temporary” un-apportioned direct tax on their earned wage as an emergency because of war, and once conditioned to paying it, the tax law was cleverly restructured to continue the tax under a new name by the "Individual Income Tax Act of 1944".


Trump would certainly be acting within his powers to issue an Executive Order ending a federal tax on tips unless the tax is apportioned.