The bipartisan “no taxes on tips” proposal is the most prominent example of a politically attractive soundbite bumping aside sound policy.

Campaigns and political party platforms provide limited policy details. That’s by design: especially in a campaign, politicians tend to accentuate what they will do for...

The fate of a government agency’s funding is always precarious—and especially so for the Internal Revenue Service, one of the most unpopular federal agencies in...

Donald Trump would exempt overtime pay from tax. Kamala Harris and Trump both agree that tips should be exempt. There are lots of tax exclusions in the tax code, but this form of tax subsidy is especially costly, regressive, and prone to abuse. 

Only a handful of all employees and fewer than 60 percent of tipped workers would benefit from proposals to exempt gratuities from federal income tax,...