Trump Promises To Abolish Taxes On Overtime Pay If Elected

Former President Donald Trump announced Thursday that he will end taxes on overtime pay if he is re-elected to the White House.

"As part of our additional tax cuts, we will end all taxes on overtime," the former president vowed at a rally in Tucson, Arizona, according to NBC News.

During his first rally since Tuesday's debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump discussed the plan to make overtime tax-free. He claimed it would "give people more incentive to work" and would also benefit companies.

"It gives the companies a lot — it's a lot easier to get the people," he added.

The 78-year-old Republican presidential candidate said that workers who exceed 40 hours a week would no longer be subject to taxes on their overtime hours.

According to the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act, eligible workers who work beyond the standard 40 hours in a single work-week must be paid at least 1.5 times their regular pay rate for overtime hours.

Following Trump's bold remarks on making overtime pay tax-free, the Harris campaign released a statement, calling the former president's proposal "his latest snake oil sales pitch."

"No matter how much he lies now, Donald Trump's record and agenda are clear — as president, he stole millions of dollars of wages from the workers he purports to represent," said Harris campaign spokesperson Joseph Costello.

"He is desperate and scrambling and saying whatever it takes to try to trick people into voting for him," the Harris campaign stated.

Earlier this month, at a campaign event with union workers, Harris accused Trump of blocking overtime pay from millions of workers during his presidency from 2017 to 2021.

The Trump administration in 2019 had issued a rule raising the eligibility of overtime pay to 1.3 million additional American workers. This was in contrast to a more generous proposal introduced by former President Barack Obama.

At the time, the Trump administration raised the threshold for exemption from overtime pay to $35,568, up from $23,660. However, workers' rights groups criticized the decision, saying that it benefited far fewer workers compared to Obama's proposal.

Under the Obama administration, the Department of Labor put forward a proposal raising the threshold to more than $47,000, which would have covered nearly 5 million more workers for overtime. However, the move was struck down in court.

Increasing overtime pay at this income level mainly benefits blue-collar workers, such as fast-food employees, nurses, retail workers, and others in low-wage positions.

"The people who work overtime are among the hardest working citizens in our country and for too long no one in Washington has been looking out for them," Trump noted Thursday.