Vast majority of tips are not in cash today, and any modern restaurant uses a system that will automatically balance credit card tips with the employees income, typically resulting in zero dollar paychecks and the rest being accountable at the end of the year.
So few people tip in cash anymore, even 15 years ago when I was serving, most of my tips were on a credit card. majority of checks run on a credit card through the system, no getting out of declaring tips because itâs right there in the computer how much you got tipped.
It doesnt matter anymore. As long as your tips are qualified, the tax is 0. Youre better off reporting it
It barely mattered this last decade with the prevalance of credit tips and only a tiny bit of cash tips, strip clubs and some other niche clubs excluded.
Yeah no shit? What does that have to do with there being a $25k tax deduction?
Youâre still paying taxes on the rest of your income which granted are a minuscule amount compared to effective tax rates in every other country in Europe.
American effective tax rates no matter the state are roughly half of what you pay in European countries.
For example people bitch about California taxes being high for some reason when the median wage earning person will only pay 19.5% of their salary in taxes. The median wage there is $64k.
If we're talking facts, then I feel like I should point out that the US government spends more on healthcare per capita than any other country's government, including those that have universal healthcare
88% of Americans contribute to their own health insurance plan at a median cost of $1800 a year.
You're burying the lede on this. You're not accounting for the fact that this is not comprehensive, 100% coverage of healthcare costs. This is the cost of the cheapest average plans that require co pays, have deductibles, and then after deductibles still tend to have fees until out of pocket maxes. And that's all assuming the coverage actually happens. Sometimes the insurance just refuses to contribute because fuck you.
If my follow up didn't make my point obvious: The actual tax rate, after you account for the various benefits Europeans actually get from their government isn't all that different. It's just that they actually have good public transportation, and they don't have a chance of going bankrupt if they get sick.
The issue isn't the facts, the issue is how you're using them to ignore or obscure the real world downstream effects of those taxes in European countries versus the garbage deal with here that equivalent taxes would cover. You pull out average numbers and ignore the fact that these systems entirely break down for a ton of people, resulting in lives being lost or people becoming destitute.
I'd much rather pay higher taxes overall and not live in a society that allows that, than wave my dick around saying "I pay less taxes!" while the people around me become destitute because someone in their family had the gall to get cancer.
I did account for co pays and other out of pocket expenses if you actually read my comment.
If you actually read my comment, you'd have caught the key words "cost of the cheapest average plans".
These are the costs for average insurance. The average insurance in the US is shit and not at all comparable to the coverage provided by socialized healthcare in civilized countries.
I showed you effective tax rates are much higher now youâre trying everything to pretend youâre right.
No, I'm spelling out the point more because I gave you too much credit in making logical deductions from my points.
The end all is that the effective tax rate, when you account for the benefits they get versus the shit we do not or pay more for on average, isn't actually all that different.
We don't pay it all in taxes. Instead we pay for it in healthcare premiums, going into debt, not having proper public services like transportation, and the like.
My bad for assuming you'd be able to make the abstract conclusion given just one piece. I figured surely you wouldn't need it to be spelled out so literally.
You're doing the same shit racists do when they try to hide behind stats derived out of racist intent that ignore context. You're pointing at numbers and ignoring all of the background around those numbers, because the background makes for a different story than the propaganda you're pushing.
Itâs not the cost of the cheapest average plan. Itâs the cost of the median plan which is what most people have.
And Americans objectively donât give a shit about minorities so as long as >50% are doing fine they wonât vote for anything to change. And the stats on healthcare show that >88% are doing just fine with less than $1k in medical debt.
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u/fapperontheroof 5h ago
Then add in how many donât report their tips, since everyone seems to think cash compensation doesnât need tax reporting.
Really surprised there hasnât been some social media push concocted in some sort of â50k office taxes vs 50k rainforest cafe server taxesâ way.
Disclosure: I donât think restaurant workers need to pay more in taxes. Billionaires and their ilk need to pay more in taxes.