

One more reason it's crap to be a waiter in America - DSK007
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/08/irs-tax-waiter-tips-automatic-gratuities

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dragonwriter
As noted, this doesn't change the substantive tax treatment of tips. It just
moves automatic tips into automatic reporting and up-front witholding instead
of individual reporting and payment-on-filing (potentially with penalties for
underpayment in advance.)

 _Unless_ you are planning on cheating on your taxes, this doesn't do any
harm.

> Restaurants are already threatening to end automatic gratuities because it
> would be an administrative nightmare to do what the IRS now wants.

This is a thin excuse; if they are charging automatic tips in the first place,
they are probably already tracking the information and would have minimal
difficulty reporting it as wages and doing withholding from it (since they are
already reporting and withholding from base wages.)

More likely, its being used as an _excuse_ to present to tipped staff (who
bear the cost of the change of restaurant policy) to justify stopping
including gratuities for large parties, when the real reason is to increase
the appeal of the restaurant to such parties, but where without an external
party to redirect blame for the policy on, management feels that the staff
morale drain and resulting reduction in performance/retention/etc. would hurt
more than the removal of the policy would help.

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waqf
This restauranteur thinks that tipping makes it harder to reward staff fairly,
and that this is a direct cause of acrimony in the kitchen. Some of his
arguments are dependent on CA state law, though:

(part 1) [http://jayporter.com/dispatches/observations-from-a-
tipless-...](http://jayporter.com/dispatches/observations-from-a-tipless-
restaurant-part-1-overview/)

(part 2) [http://jayporter.com/dispatches/observations-from-a-
tipless-...](http://jayporter.com/dispatches/observations-from-a-tipless-
restaurant-part-2-money-and-the-law/)

~~~
jack-r-abbit
Great info (although I've not made it all the way through the first one yet).
Interesting to learn that, due to laws, tip sharing is not via a restaurant
policy but something that only happens organically among the staff.

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jack-r-abbit
> _Restaurants are already threatening to end automatic gratuities_

Please... do it. I don't mind tipping. In fact, I generally tip pretty well
(only shorting when service truly deserves less). But it really irritates me
when places add the tip in automatically.

Having said that, I don't think it is such a tragedy that some of the server's
tips are included in their paycheck. Not many jobs let you take home part of
you money everyday. I have to wait 2 weeks to get _any_ of my money.

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vparikh
This is why I just say pay people a livable wage and forget about all of this
bullshit - the only people this helps are the business owners. And lets face
it they are already getting way too many tax breaks. The waiters will get
screwed and the customers always feel as though they should give more. If you
paid people a decent salary, they wouldn't have to depend on the crumbs you
leave them.

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sseveran
Given that most restaurants fail rather quickly you would be hard pressed to
make the claim that the owners are stealing all the money.

~~~
codva
If the restaurant is doing poorly isn't more of an incentive for the owner to
pocket whatever he can from the business?

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yetanotherphd
The IRS is just interpreting the law as they see it. At some point they have
to draw the line between a tip and a wage, and they draw the line so that an
"automatic tip" is a wage.

All the rest of the article is irrational garbage. The fair comparison is not
between how the IRS treats waiters and how they treat billionaires, but rather
how the IRS treats waiters of a certain yearly income, and how they treat
other workers of the same income.

~~~
jessaustin
"He don't tip? Whaddaya mean you don't tip?"

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jgalt212
1\. Even with any impending crackdown, waiting tables is still a really good
paying job if work anywhere but the cheapest greasy spoons (small tabs = small
tips).

2\. It's articles like this (squeeze the little guy instead of the
millionaires/billionaires) that make me scratch my head as to why the
Republicans continue to hate Obama so much. He's been great for the rich, and
bad for the poor--just like W, but W was expected to be that way.

