I’m here in Las Vegas for a conference where I just paid $7 for a cup of coffee and then was shamed into tipping another $1 to the server for pouring the coffee and handing it to me. Welcome to America. I feel like I’m tipping for everything, everywhere. And now it’s only going to get worse. And for that I blame President Trump.

Of course, our tipping culture was in place long before Trump took office. But now that his “no tax on tips” promise became law, our government is officially enabling it. That’s good news for tipped workers and for small-business owners who may feel less pressure to pay higher wages if their workers are getting enough gratuities. But at the same time, it’s bad news for the rest of us who will likely feel even more obligated than ever to tip.

What’s frustrating is that the tax benefits for tipped workers are not only over-hyped, they’re also temporary. Yes, workers can avoid getting taxed on their tips – but not all workers (see below) and not all their tips. If you’re eligible, you can deduct up to $25,000 of tip income each year and there are income limitations. Also, you won’t see that benefit until you file your year-end tax returns. You also still have to pay in to social security and Medicare taxes. And it’s estimated that as many as one-third of those employees eligible for this deduction will never use it because their income is so low they don’t pay any federal taxes anyway. Oh, and by the way, the deduction expires in 2028. So enjoy it while it lasts.

Also irritating is who’s eligible. The treasury department recently published a list of about 50 types of workers who can claim the tipped-wages deduction. Unfortunately, I wasn’t consulted. But if I were, then I would have been a little more particular.

For example, I would never include “digital content creators” as eligible tipped workers. Really? Now we’re tipping influencers? Like MrBeast needs more money? Given all the harm that social media has wrought on this world, it’s probably better not to encourage these people with tax incentives.

I was also surprised to see that electricians, plumbers and locksmiths who work in people’s homes are eligible for tips. These are licensed professionals performing a service. Many are independent contractors or freelancers who are quite capable of coming up with their own fees. And those who are employed aren’t cheap either. I’m not sure where the line is drawn. Should I also be tipping the staff of my accounting firm? My life insurance agent?

What exactly are “gambling and sports book writers and runners”? Who tips these people? I’m not a prude, but should we be enabling this industry in particular? Can the casinos not afford to pay these people enough?

I can’t imagine who would tip a private event planner, either. Event planners work for people who have enough money to pay for event planners. It seems silly to give these people a tax benefit for any tips on top of that.

Finally, why in the world would anyone want to encourage “self-enrichment teachers” with a tax-free tip? I would think the best way to enrich oneself is to pocket your extra money and not further enrich the self-enrichment teacher. What’s next, tipping the guy who mansplains how the infield fly rule works?

Now that I’ve listed some people who should be dropped from this benefit, it’s only fair to share a few who were unfairly left off. For example:

Postal workers. Every year we tip our postal worker. She provides a friendly, cheerful, daily service in rain, snow, sleet … well, you know the rest. Most of my friends do the same.

Flight attendants. They load bags. They carry babies. They walk around cabins during turbulence. They deal with jerks. And many don’t even start getting paid until the plane leaves the gate!

School teachers. I don’t understand why everyone wrings their hands over how to improve compensation for our teachers and yet there are no tax incentives for parents to tip them.

School bus drivers. Them, too.

Grocery store cashiers. All during Covid, while the rest of us stayed safely at home, watching Netflix and receiving our Amazon packages, the guy who ran the cash register at our local grocery store came in to work every day and did his job. His name is Emilio. Add him to the list, please.

If it were up to me, we’d be like the rest of the world and ban tips altogether. Instead of incentivizing people to tip, I’d tax tip income higher so employers would be forced to step up and just pay a fair wage. But that’s not reality in 21st-century America. So let’s just make this benefit permanent already instead of playing budgetary games and setting an expiration date near (surprise!) the next presidential election, so it can be a populist rallying point. Let’s also re-visit who is and isn’t eligible.

My final tip: when in Vegas, make your coffee in your room.

“If you love cider, this is cider to the power of 10,” says Barny Butterfield, speaking about the flavours packed by some of this year’s “special” apples.

Indeed Butterfield, the owner of Sandford Orchards, near Exeter, is buying extra tanks to increase cider production after the UK’s hottest summer on record resulted in an abundance of fruit.

“I think God’s a cider maker,” he joked. To thrive, fruit trees need heat and light and this year “we had lots of both”.

“I’ve had boughs breaking on trees under the weight of fruit,” Butterfield continued. “It’s probably going to be the best vintage since 2018.”

With more than 20 years in the business, he declared: “It might even be the best in my cider-making lifetime. We’re looking at an incredibly special year.”

The National Association of Cider Makers (NACM) says the warm spring and summer have produced apples “full of rich flavours and natural sweetness”, despite the fact that the reduced rainfall means the fruit is slightly smaller than average.

“I’ve heard from cider makers and growers that the sugar and tannin levels are very high, which means the quality of the fruit will be outstanding,” said the NACM chair, David Sheppy, who is also the managing director of Sheppy’s Cider. “It is going to be a good year for quality.”

The record-breaking summer temperatures this year that contributed to the abundance of apples was made about 70 times more likely because of human-induced climate change, the Met Office concluded in an analysis published earlier this month. The mean temperature across June, July and August was 16.1C (70F), significantly above the current record of 15.8C set in 2018, with the country also seeing four heatwaves across a single season.

Sheppy, whose family has 36 hectares (90 acres) of orchards in Somerset, said the trees had “suffered a little bit”. Mature trees “don’t mind a dry spell”, he said, but the stress of the dry weather meant he had observed a small number that had split and lost their branches.

Cider-producers have moved to make the most of this year’s bumper crop. Sandford Orchards, which makes Devon Red cider, has installed eight new 50,000-litre (11,000-gallon) tanks and Butterfield is particularly excited to have lots of Tremlett’s Bitter apples, meaning Sandford Orchards can bottle a single variety for the first time in seven years.

He describes their “leathery and marmaladey” notes and “rich natural sweetness”.

There is also good news for perry drinkers after last year’s disaster. Albert Johnson, director of Ross-on-Wye Cider & Perry Company bills it as a “bounceback year”.

“Last year was so bad for perry pears, probably over half the crop was wiped out by the bad conditions in the growing season,” he said.

It is a different story this year. “If anything, the pear sugars are up even more than the apples, and there’s plenty of them. So it’s a really exciting year for perry.”

Industry figures show that while UK cider sales edged up slightly to £3.1bn in 2024, the overall amount drunk declined by about 3% to 676m litres. Sheppy, the sixth generation of his family to work in cider-making, said the industry “had been in decline, but it’s picking up again”.

“It’s coming back,” he said of the sector, which supports about 65,000 jobs. “There’s a lot of innovation and new ideas, both around reducing alcohol content but also at the higher end … to appeal to the modern drinker.

“Like a lot of industries, cider goes through phases. But there’s a strong passion for the industry in this country. It’s a close connection with the land and farmers.”

Sheppy’s harvest started at the end of last week. “We grow 40 different varieties of apples,” he said. “The earliest ones are ripening now but the main cider apple varieties, like Dabinett, Harry Masters and Yarlington Mill, are ready mid- to late October, early November. That’s the key time.”

But even if this year is one to remember, Sheppy is keen to point out that the industry doesn’t have “bad years”, only “bad harvests”.

“It’s not like when you get a wetter harvest, the quality is not as good, because that’s all in the blending process. We can blend a good year with a bad year and maintain the quality, that is part of the art of being a cider maker.”

Andrew Bailey has been urged by former Bank of England policymakers to ease pressure on the government’s borrowing costs by cutting back its bond-selling plans.

In a crunch week for the economy, four influential ex-members of the Bank’s monetary policy committee (MPC) said a change in course was needed.

Britain’s long-term borrowing costs have hit their highest level in 27 years, intensifying the pressure on chancellor Rachel Reeves before her 26 November autumn budget.

Threadneedle Street has blamed the rise on global factors, triggered by Donald Trump’s trade war and his assault on the independence of the US Federal Reserve.

However, the Bank admitted last month that a £100bn programme of bond sales to unwind its crisis-era quantitative easing (QE) scheme is also playing a role.

With the government under pressure on the economy, the central bank is widely expected to keep its base rate unchanged on Thursday at 4%, but could signal a slowdown in its bond-selling plans for the next 12 months.

The Bank’s decision comes in a busy week for economic news, with official data due on the jobs market and inflation, as Reeves gears up for a challenging autumn budget.

Michael Saunders, a former MPC member, now at the consultancy Oxford Economics, urged the Bank to scale back its disposals amid febrile conditions in markets.

“It is highly likely they will slow the pace … The gilt market and bond market in general are weak and volatile,” he said. “Current conditions are such that a higher pace of active sales might have an undesirable effect on pushing up yields further.”

A second ex-MPC member, who asked to remain anonymous, said: “It definitely has to be reduced. Not reducing it would be completely tone deaf to what’s happening in the global bond markets.”

Threadneedle Street intervened during the depths of the financial crisis to buy UK government bonds – aiming to crash borrowing costs close to zero – in a programme that was ultimately expanded up to reach £895bn in total.

The Bank is now winding down QE – a process known as “quantitative tightening” (QT) – and has shed about £100bn of bonds in the past year through active sales and allowing maturing debts not to be replaced.

It still has a portfolio worth about £560bn, having disposed of most of its holdings at a loss.

City investors widely expect the Bank to scale back its QT programme to about £70bn for the year ahead. However, this would involve maintaining active sales at current levels because fewer gilts are due to expire over the next 12 months.

Sushil Wadhwani, who was on the MPC between 1999 and 2002, called for a halt to active sales entirely amid worries over the impact of QT on the bond market.

“On monetary policy grounds, the Bank should switch to passive QT [only allowing maturing debt to expire],” he said.

“Irrespective of what Andrew Bailey says, the 30-year yield has a significant impact on confidence in the UK economy. I have foreign investors bring it up all the time.”

Scaling back the Bank’s QT programme could help the chancellor by easing some of the pressure on long-term gilt yields. Such a step would also save the Treasury money because Threadneedle Street has been selling its bonds at a loss.

Andrew Sentance, another former MPC member, said cutting the Bank’s QT programme to about £70bn was sensible because markets expected such a reduction. However, he warned Reeves against banking on any windfall.

“The job of the Bank is not to make the chancellor’s life easy. Its job is to control inflation. And a modest winding back on QT would be quite consistent with that.”

The IPPR thinktank has estimated that halting active sales – matching the US Federal Reserve and European Central Bank – could save the Treasury more than £10bn a year.

However, holding onto the bonds would not be cost free, because the Bank earns less interest on its gilt portfolio than it pays out on commercial bank reserves.

Last month, the IPPR called on Reeves to raise taxes on the country’s biggest banks amid windfall profits on their reserves parked at Threadneedle Street. Some economists have also called for the Bank to pay lower rates of interest on some commercial bank reserves.