WASHINGTON—The U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), under the administration of President Donald Trump, on Friday announced the proposed draft guidance on accommodating Trump’s campaign promise of “no taxes on tips.” Sex workers are not included.
Despite what some adult content creators hoped for, the “no tax for tips” provisions that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act implemented at the assertion of Republicans in Congress and in the White House do not apply to pornographic material and other forms of consensual sex work.
“The proposed regulations would provide that amounts received for services the performance of which is a felony or misdemeanor under applicable law are not qualified tips,” reads the draft regulation that was reviewed by AVN. “In addition, the proposed regulations would provide that amounts received for prostitution services and pornographic activity are not qualified tips.” The regulation additionally dictates that “any amount received for pornographic activity is not a qualified tip.”
Nate Mallory, a tax attorney specializing in adult entertainment industry clients, expressed to AVN in previous coverage about the possibility of tax breaks on tips for content creators that he was skeptical of the assumption that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act would be interpreted broadly to include legal variations of consensual sex work.
He also noted, “The exclusion of adult industry workers from tip tax benefits would raise serious constitutional concerns.
“Such selective application of tax benefits based on moral judgments about certain occupations could violate Equal Protection principles and would be counterintuitive to the core function of the Internal Revenue Service: to generate and collect tax revenue for the federal budget,” Mallory told AVN.
“Tax policy should be based on economic principles, not moral judgments,” he concluded.
