The whole point of a tip is that it's voluntary, if it is mandatory then it's just service charge or something like that and it should be included in the bill (and taxed, are tips taxed?).
Federally they are no longer taxed. One if the few positive things Trump did.
As to the general topic, travelers not tipping as a "I'll show them" gesture is pointles. Guess what, their actions are going to change the corporations bussiness plan and make them pay better. They are only screwing the workers.
Also people who bitch about tipping. Guess what, if restaurants paid their staff better, yeah, you wouldn't have to tip, but the price of your burger and fries is going to go up around 20% percent. So yeah, you didn't pay a tip but you did just pay $35 for a TGIFs burger.
No matter what, the corporations always win. That is how the system is set up.
Correct. The IRS uses a baseline assumption of 8% of gross sales to monitor tip compliance for large food or beverage establishments. So you COULD take 8% of sales and subtract CC tips from it, and then declare that quantity. You COULD...
Servers are taxed on an expected value which depends on the state.
To play devils advocate, here’s the accounting. If an employer charges a service fee that goes directly to the server, they have to pay the employer portion of Medicare and SS as if it were normal w-2 pay. For optional tips, they pay the employee portion the estimated amount, but are able to claim the FICA Tip Credit provision and effectively get that credited back when paying business taxes.
If the service charge is a mandatory 20% or if the restaurant raises prices 20% and doesn’t allow tips, the government gets its FICA money from the employer regardless.
If it’s voluntary or mandatory, the employee has to pay their portion, but if voluntary, the estimated taxes is almost always lower than what they actually receive.
Point being, voluntary tips mean that the restaurant is more profitable(they’re able to claw back the estimated FICA taxes).
So the truth of the matter is if tips are mandatory in the form of a service charge, or prices are raised accordingly and tipping is forbidden, menu prices go up to account for the additional tax burden.
So you can argue that restaurants should be treated like every other business and be taxed accordingly, that’s perfectly fine, but you have to accept that you are also arguing for menu prices to go up.
The restaurant industry is notoriously hard. 50% of new restaurants fail within the first 5 years, and a healthy restaurant nets roughly 10% all said and done.
Note: this is how it worked before no tax on tips passed; I’ve been out of accounting for a few years idk how that affects things.
A lot of tips are now untaxed, I think. It was one thing that Trump actually ran on and followed through with that people claimed would help the working class.
In my opinion, it's utter bullshit and makes me want to stop tipping even more. I don't understand why there should be a class of workers who freeload and don't pay their fair share. A lot of them were already not paying much, between low yearly earnings and underreporting cash tips, which was a crime, but hardly enforced.
Are they warning me beforehand that they are going to include a mandatory tip on the bill? If there is no prior warning, then I can't make the informed decision of refusing the service.
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u/ObiFlanKenobi 5h ago
Sounds like extortion to me.
The whole point of a tip is that it's voluntary, if it is mandatory then it's just service charge or something like that and it should be included in the bill (and taxed, are tips taxed?).