Eliminating the income tax for everyone is a better platform. I have experience waiting tables and did so for a number of years. It can be hard, often thankless work. Nevertheless, I’m not sure servers should specifically be singled out, among all other occupations, for income tax exemption.
It’s also worth pointing out that servers generally under-report their tip income - particularly cash tips. When people charge their tips it automatically gets reported. Cash tips are reported at the discretion of a server. As a server I would have preferred to see establishments getting away from tips and moving to a gratuity based system, as they have in Canada and Europe. Being stiffed by a cheap customer who received excellent service is one of the most demoralizing things for a server.
BTW, I recently visited my brother in Miami, and see that a lot of restaurants there are switching to a gratuity based system where a certain percentage (usually about 18%) is automatically added on to pay the server. Additional tips above that can still be made, but the server is at least guaranteed to not be stiffed. This probably has to do with the large number of foreign tourists who are used to paying that way. A gratuity based system also helps mitigating the sort of bargaining that sometimes goes on between servers and customers, whereby a customer may sometimes try to pressure servers into getting something extra (an extra dessert or something like that) with the implication that if they don’t cooperate, they won’t get a good tip.
Because they’re often paid less than minimum wage because their tips cover the shortfall. Except they lose money when they take vacation days or call out sick. Why should they be treated less than other workers who have paid vacations and sick days they can actually afford to take?
THE LIMIT For GIFTS without taxes is around $17,000.
IF a well to do person can GIFT his kids every year-—why is this wrong?
The paperwork restaurants is onerous, also.