Crisfield restaurant owners react to ‘No Tax On Tips’
CRISFIELD, Md. – Local restaurant owners responding to one of the highlights of President Donald Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill.”
Owners we spoke with Thursday say they are optimistic for the “No Tax On Tips” portion of President Trump’s spending bill.
“What a wonderful thing, our servers work very hard,” said Waters Edge Cafe Owner Danny Nelson. “With prices of everything being more now, sometimes it kind of leaves a little less on the table for a tip for the servers and now this is going to help them immensely.”
Nelson is one of a handful of restaurant owners in the Crisfield area who think no tax on tips will help servers and their bottom line.
“They won’t have to stress over paying the taxes on it,” said Nelson. “We won’t have to remove taxes from their tips and hold them, they’ll be able to have them, they can do what they want with them, it’s just a beautiful thing all around.”
Under President Trump’s spending bill, workers will be able to deduct up to $25,000 in tips through 2028.
The deduction begins phasing out at incomes above $150,000, and workers will still have to pay federal taxes on tips beyond the $25,000 cap.
“I just know when I first started here as a teenager hardly anybody tipped and now people tip a whole lot more, so people tip more and that means more income, so I guess any tax off of that will be helpful to the people working here,” said Kevin Evans, Owner of Gordon’s Confectionery.
Evans also thinks highly of the bill’s no tax legislation.
He says workers at his restaurant make a third of their wages from tips and the only problem he sees is determining their weekly paycheck.
“It’ll probably help them a little bit, maybe not a whole lot but it’ll probably save them maybe a few hundred dollars a year or something like that so, maybe a couple thousand, whether it will be that much or not, but it’s better than nothing,” said Evans.
Critics of the bill have cited frustration over the tax deduction cap, the policy’s limited time frame and the disparity this may create between front-of-house and back-of-house restaurant staff.
