IRS Issues Significant Update on Tax Cuts Affecting 4 Million Americans

In a new and highly anticipated document that was just released on the Federal Register's website, the IRS finally provided some much needed clarification regarding one of President Trump's more unique campaign promises, the elimination of the tax on tips. Now the history of that campaign promise was a wild ride. If you remember, Trump came out with the no tax on tips platform seemingly out of the blue during one of his speeches. But it wound up being such a big hit based on polling that within about two weeks, the Kamala Harris campaign also came out with their own promise to also eliminate tax on tips. Now, of course, eventually Trump won the election and Congress included the no tax on tips provision within the text of the big beautiful bill that was then signed into law by President Trump on July 4th of this year. And by the way, just as an aside, in the comments section, I noticed that some people questioned why I continue to call it the big beautiful bill. That's literally the name of the bill. It's not just a moniker that Trump gave it. It's actually codified into law. At the very top, it says the one big beautiful bill act of 2025. Anyway, included in the text of that law is a provision which reads as follows. In the case of qualified tips received by an individual during any taxable year in the course of a trade or business, such qualified tips shall be taken into account under subsection only to the extent that the gross income for the taxpayer exceeds the sum of the deductions allocable to the trader business in which such qualified tips are received by the individual for such taxable year. Now, that's obviously a lot of legalese, and that's why lawyers get paid so much having to dissect that type of text. But in practical terms, what it means is that based on the numbers for the year 2025, this provision applies to anyone who makes less than $160,000 per year. The text of the law then continues to clarify, quote, the term qualified tips means cash tips received by an individual in an occupation which customarily and regularly received tips on or before December 31st, 2024, as provided by the secretary. Now, the last sentence, as provided by the secretary, refers to the secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Scott Besson. And so since July of this year, when this bill was actually signed into law, Americans who receive tips have been eagerly awaiting the necessary follow-up document from Secretary Besson on who exactly qualifies for this tax exemption, as well as what tips qualify, which finally came in the form of this document right here, released on the Federal Register's website, outlining the types of jobs as well as the types of tips that are eligible. And some of them are actually fairly surprising. The list is broken down into eight separate categories, including beverage and food service, entertainment and events, hospitality and guest services, home services, personal services, personal appearance and wellness, recreation and instruction, and transportation and delivery. And then included among some of the more, you can say, surprising jobs that are exempted from paying tax on tips, you have the following, quote, Now, I have personally never tipped anyone during a bingo game, but the IRS is implying that I probably should. Regardless though, what this means is that all those different occupations we just listed, and actually there is a 13 page list of all the occupations covered. I'll throw a link to that whole PDF document. You can find it down in the description box below, but those occupations can now legally not pay taxes on the tips they collect, which is actually a big deal. One of the reasons that this whole provision was so popular during the campaign trail in the first place was that it basically provides direct relief to the actual workers in the country, because up until now, when you receive tips, even cash tips, you were legally required to report that as income on your taxes and then pay taxes on it, which could easily be as high as 20%, depending on what bracket you fall into. Now, realistically, I'm sure that most people were not reporting their tips super accurately, but now they don't have to break the law when, you know, receiving tips under the table. They can now accept the tips out in the open in a dignified way, and then just not pay taxes on it. Now, the other reason, though, that this provision was so popular on the campaign trail was that while it allowed the money to basically stay in the pockets of the actual workers, it also didn't really affect the bottom line for the government and the IRS as a whole. Congressional budget analysts project the no tax on tips provision would increase the deficit by $40 billion through 2028. The nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation estimated in June that the tips deduction will cost $32 billion over 10 years, which might sound like a lot. I mean, it's tens of billions of dollars. But realistically, that very same projection, it showed that 10 years from now, the annual deficit will be $2.9 trillion per year. And so the amount that this no tax on tips provision will, quote unquote, cause the government is basically just a rounding error. And so that's all the first story that I wanted to discuss. And again, if you want to see if your specific job qualifies for this exemption, I will throw the links to the relevant government documents that they released regarding the full list breakdown. They'll be down in the description box below. However, there's something else tangentially related that I want to discuss here, which is that among the professions which can now accept tips and not pay taxes on them are online video creators like myself, except not myself, because for the past five years now, Google, the parent company of YouTube, has completely shut down my ability to monetize this channel. Facts matter. In fact, on January 20th of 2021, the very day that Joe Biden was sworn into office, which could be a complete coincidence, but it was the very day that monetization on this channel was completely stripped, which was odd. We never received a strike on this channel. We actually never even received any warnings for the content, the content not to toot my own horn. But on this channel, we're very measured and we're very fact based. And so I naturally thought it was a mistake, but it wasn't because we tried to appeal this demonetization for the past five years now. And every single time we received the very same message from the YouTube system that one of the other channels associated with the Epoch Times parent account broke the content policy and therefore all the channels are collectively demonetized. But the irony is that every single channel that's associated with the Epoch Times receives that very same message. We all get told that one of the other channels broke the policy, but we never are told which one. It's like a bad joke. But the end result is that all of our programs have been demonetized for the past five years. But it looks like that might actually come to an end. All right, just a pause here for a super quick snack break brought to you by today's sponsor, Masa Chips, probably the healthiest chips on the market. They're made with exactly three ingredients, organic blue corn, 100% grass fed beef tallow and sea salt. You really don't get much better than this. 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There's no feeling of regret afterwards. You just eat them. You feel great. And then you go about your day. And the best part is that to our viewers, to the viewers of Facts Matter, Masa is offering a great promotional sale. Just head on over to Masachips.com forward slash Roman. And if you use promo code Roman, you can save 25% off your first order. And so again, Masachips.com forward slash Roman. Use promo code Roman for 25% off. And check them out. They sponsor the show. They care about getting the truth out there. And they care about your health, which is why they don't compromise on the ingredients. So check them out. And now let's head back to the episode. Just earlier this week, Google released a statement through their lawyers, you can see it up on your screen, saying that YouTube creators who were removed for their views concerning either COVID or the 2020 election can now rejoin the platform. Here's part of what their letter said. And for your reference, this letter from Google, it came as a response to a subpoena that was issued by the House Judiciary Committee. And so this letter, it's addressed to Congressman Jim Jordan, the chairman of that House committee. The COVID-19 pandemic was an unprecedented time in which online platforms had to reach decisions about how best to balance freedom of expression with responsibility, including responsibility with respect to the moderation of user generated content that could result in real world harm. Senior Biden administration officials, including White House officials, conducted repeated and sustained outreach to Alphabet, which is Google's parent company, and Prezdi company regarding certain user generated content related to the COVID-19 pandemic that did not violate its policies. While the company continued to develop and enforce its policies independently, Biden administration officials continue to press the company to remove non-violative user generated content. Now, just to pause here for a super quick moment. That is actually an amazing, simple worded account of what actually happened just several years after the fact. The letter continued, quote, It is unacceptable and wrong when any government, including the Biden administration, attempts to dictate how the company moderates content, and the company has consistently fought against those efforts on First Amendment grounds. In contrast to other large platforms, YouTube has not operated a fact checking program that identifies and compensates fact checking partners to produce content to support moderation. YouTube has not and will not empower fact checkers to take action on or label content across the company's services. Which might technically be true, but they definitely have their own moderation mechanism. Now, in response to this letter from Google, you had Congressman Jim Jordan release his own statement saying the following, quote, Whether you were an established YouTube presence with a massive following like Dan Bongino, or just were starting out to express political views there, you will have an opportunity to come back onto the platform if you were censored for engaging in political speech. This is another victory in the fight against censorship. And so we'll have to wait and see how this all actually plays out. The statement didn't actually address the topic of monetization or demonetization. But perhaps now that the door is open and the Overton window has shifted, we'll be able to have a discussion. If you'd like to read the full letter from Alphabet, Google's parent company, I'll throw the PDF version of it. You can find it down in the description box below. And I would recommend you read it. It's interesting. It's not that long. And it does kind of break down what happened in their view point by point, which is kind of an interesting perspective to read. The actual company discussing it now many years after the fact. In the meantime, though, if you'd like to support the work that we do here at The Epoch Times, well, consider subscribing. Right now, we are running a great promotional sale. You can try The Epoch Times risk-free. You can cancel anytime if you don't like it, but you will probably love it. It's a great news source that actually respects your intelligence as a person. And you can check it out by clicking on that link below in the description box. I'll throw it in there. You can click on it. It'll take you to the sale page where you can try The Epoch Times. It's a super low price just to get you on board, get you to try the content, read the articles, get hooked on the infographics, the videos there, the documentaries, including I should mention, I mentioned in a previous episode as well, but we have a documentary in the works that traces sort of the timeline of how the smear campaign against Charlie Kirk actually started and how it evolved. Basically, how the whole labeling of him as a far-right Nazi figure, how it started, and then how it snowballed from, let's say, like 2017 up until his obvious tragic death in the year 2025. So look out for that. That's going to be coming soon. But also, we have a ton of other great documentaries on there as well. So check it out. I really hope you join The Epoch Times community. There's over a million people who are on board now. And so it's kind of a thriving community. Like reading the articles is great. The analysis pieces are great. But also, for every article, there's a comments tab. It's sort of like a forum. And in there, you can find even more interesting takes, perspectives, and ways of thinking about events or connecting disparate events in a way that, at least when I read it, I find it really enlightening. And I'm like, oh, I never thought about it that way before. And sometimes the comments section is even better than the articles is what I'm saying. So check it out. Again, the link to that sale page will be down there in the description box below. Until we get our demonetization, that's sort of the way we have to grow and fund ourselves. But I actually will say, because maybe even because we got demonetized, we had to build this whole sort of infrastructure of our own, basically, to grow The Epoch Times as a newspaper brand by itself, sort of separate from all these different social media platforms. And in hindsight, many years removed, that was the smartest decision. Because all these other media companies, they're getting decimated. They're like at the whims of social media companies. Now that Google is really leveraging AI tools in their search. And basically, when you ask a question on Google, it basically just compiles everything and it gives you an AI answer. So nobody's even clicking into the search results anymore as much. I've seen stats that search traffic is down something crazy, like, I don't know, 50% to 70% for news sites because of that. But because we were censored on search for so long, we never even really spent time building out that part of the business. And so The Epoch Times really just built a subscription model. And so we were able to basically, what, not have to skirt around all these different social media platforms and the censorship tactics that they sort of tangentially enforce on their media partners. And so in hindsight, it was the most brilliant move for the company to do. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that we really built out this great infrastructure that's now global. We have reporters in like 30 different countries. And we were able to report the news in a way that many other media can't or weren't able to, or maybe they didn't want to. I can't speak for them. But the way we reported, I really enjoy, I really appreciate it. I read The Epoch Times every single day, not just because I worked there, but because I actually love the content. So check it out. That's kind of a long, long-winded pitch at the end. Hope you check it out. Hope you're able to join me there. And then until next time, I'm your host, Roman from The Epoch Times. Stay informed. And most importantly, stay free.