BATON ROUGE -- U.S. Senate majority leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) joined Senator Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana) in Baton Rouge to discuss the "No Tax on Tips" initiative with workers in the Capital City.

No tax on tips was one of the major selling points for President Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill."

It creates a temporary federal income tax deduction allowing tipped-based workers, like servers and bartenders, to deduct up to $25,000 of their reported tips from their taxable income.

"A server who's got a child at home. We preserved, and we increased the child tax credit, and that makes her life easier. She's got no tax on tips, and she's got no tax on overtime," Cassidy said.

Lauren Harper has been a bartender at Phil's Oyster Bar & Seafood Restaurant for the last four years. She says she makes the vast majority of her money through tips. When no tax on tips took effect last year, she says she's noticed a big difference.

"I am just thankful all the way around, it has increased for the better, so it makes it to where I have like a little bit more cushion for the rest of this year," Harper said.

However, economist Vanessa Williamson with the Tax Policy Center told WBRZ that "No Tax on Tips" may not help as much as the service industry believes.

"Low-income tipped workers will probably not see a benefit at all because unless you owe net federal income taxes at the end of the year, there isn't a benefit for you here. Only two percent of American workers are tipped workers, and more than half of those workers don't receive a benefit from this deduction," Williamson said.

Williamson believes that to really help out the service workers, there is a better alternative.

"Raising the minimum wage would reach all workers, and another problem with this provision is that it doesn't make a lot of sense, who gets tips and who doesn't, so for example, people who deliver food are often tipped, but people who deliver packages are almost never tipped," Williamson said.

The senators were asked why they believe a no-tax on tips would be more effective for low income service workers than raising the minimum wage.

"You know right now, nobody's getting minimum wage. They're getting far more than that. I just talked to a couple, and their son is a waiter at another restaurant, and they were talking about the amount of money that they're bringing home. Wow, he's not going to pay tax on that," Cassidy said.

Williamson does say that a state like Louisiana is more likely to benefit from this than other states.

"There are about six million tipped workers nationally, and there is a larger fraction that's in Louisiana than in other states because you have a big industry in hospitality," Williamson said.

Williamson wants to remind people in the service industry who are recording their tips to watch out for scammers who are trying to steal it, as this is a time of the year when many are filing their taxes.