CV NEWS FEED // Former President Donald Trump declared that he will pursue a plan of “no taxes on overtime” pay for hourly workers if he is elected in November.
“I’m also announcing that as part of our additional tax cuts, we will end all taxes on overtime,” Trump stated during a Thursday campaign rally in Tucson, Arizona.
“You know what that means?” the Republican nominee asked his rallygoers as they erupted into a prolonged period of raucous applause. “That gives people more of an incentive to work. It gives the companies … it’s a lot easier to get the people.”
The former president added that multiple economists told him the plan would give the country “a whole new workforce.”
“The people who work overtime are among the hardest-working citizens in our country,” Trump continued. “And for too long, no one in Washington has been looking out for them.”
The former president said such workers include “police officers, nurses, factory workers, construction workers, truck drivers, and machine operators.”
“It’s time for the working man and woman to finally catch a break,” he stressed. “And I think it’s going to be great for the country.”
Richard Rubin wrote in The Wall Street Journal on Friday that the proposal is Trump’s “latest promise to appeal to working-class voters.”
Rubin noted that the presidential candidate’s plan comes “atop his calls to extend his expiring tax cuts, end taxes on tips, eliminate taxes on Social Security benefits, create a deduction for newborn expenses and offer a special tax rate for domestic manufacturers.”
“Like the no-tax-on-tips proposal, the overtime pay idea would put more cash in some workers’ pockets,” Rubin added.
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Left-wing Sen. Ron Wyden, D-OR, denounced Trump’s newly proposed policy in a Friday statement that alleged: “It’s obvious his newfound concern for working people is a fraud.”
“Donald Trump is losing, and these tax proposals he’s floating out of desperation are as fake as his tan,” wrote Wyden who chairs the Senate Finance Committee.
The high-ranking Senate Democrat further claimed that “Trump knows Republicans in Congress have no intention of passing this stuff, but he goes ahead and blurts it out anyway.”
In a 2014 piece for Roll Call, journalist David Hawkings called Wyden “the most liberal chairman in the modern history of the Finance Committee.” Since 2014, Wyden has been the only Democrat to serve in this role.
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Although the senior Democrat appeared to suggest that Congressional Republicans are at odds with their nominee on the issue, one House Republican proposed a bill in July aimed at ending taxes on overtime pay.
Shortly following Trump’s remarks at his Tucson rally Thursday, Rep. Russ Fulcher, R-ID, wrote on X (formerly Twitter): “Very pleased to see President Trump support legislation to eliminate income taxes on overtime pay,” (Fulcher’s emphasis).
“Earlier this year, I introduced a historic bill to do just that,” the lawmaker added. “Americans need financial relief!”
Fulcher was referring to HR 8938, nicknamed the Keep Every Extra Penny (KEEP) Act, which he had introduced two months earlier.
Per its text, the bill seeks to “amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to exclude overtime compensation from gross income for purposes of the income tax.”
“Our nation is facing unprecedented challenges due to workforce shortages and continued high inflation levels,” Fulcher said at the time:
Millions of Americans are looking for financial relief as the rising costs of everyday goods have soared 20 percent since President Biden assumed office. By eliminating income taxes from overtime pay we can help alleviate this burden for hardworking folks by letting them keep more of what they earn while continuing to safeguard government programs such as Medicare and Social Security
According to a press release from Fulcher’s office, prior to his bill, such legislation had “never been attempted at the federal level.”
