Food & Drink Nov 18, 2015 at 4:00 am

No, It Doesn't Always Go to Your Server, and Yes, It's Legal

George Pfromm

Comments

1
I wonder how many, percentage wise of restaurant/bar workers pay/get taxed on their tips? Probably not many. Why I think that is, in all of the stories,threads,slogs in the stranger this year. I can't remember a time where some worker complaining about the lack of tips.Or, about how poor they are. How hard it is to live at all. I cant remember a time when the word Tax/Taxes/Taxed came up.

The IRS says it's taxable, so tax it. Bar and Restaurant employees probably don't like to have to fill out a 4070A. How many of them do? Then turn it in by the 10th of the following month. Then, the employer has to process it all.

I'd give more support to tipped workers who reported and paid taxes on 100% of their tips. I'm taxed on the minimum wage I make. Since they seem to make more because of their tips, they should pay taxes on all of that too.
2
@1 Hate to take the wind out of your sails bud, but pretty much all CC tips are reported and subject to tax these days. Cash is harder to track, but anyone who isn't interested in an audit is usually smart enough to declare at least a little bit.
3
@2, the minimum is $20 per month. After that it needs to be taxed. I get taxed for all I earn. I can't cheat the system like waitstaff can. They make more than minimum wage and some of that income is untaxed. They have no right to whine.
5
@1 - You are obviously unaware of how tip reporting and taxation works. You can rest assured that every server you encounter reports tips, and is taxed for them. Every. Server.
6
@4
I agree. Why is tipping still a thing? It'd be great if we were a little more like Europe on this. An Italian friend of mine still freaks out at the thought of 20% tip let alone the bills that now come with the 20/25/30% tip calculated for you.
7
@5, I just don't believe that
8
@Thrill Killer - The majority of tips are paid via credit card, not cash. Therefore they are reported and taxed just like wages. There are those that report less of the cash tips than they actually make, sure, but, again, cash tips are becoming rarer every day.
9
@7 Always easiest to believe something that saves you money, eh?
10
Was Thrill Killer the douche that owns Liberty Sushi? Or was that another douche?
11
@8, I don't believe that either. Waitstaff and Bartenders make more that minimum wage(tips incleded). Yet they whine, Tip Me, Tip Me, Tip Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Do they tip other minimum wage workers? I think NOT. Yet they expect it when a minimum wage worker visits their establishment. Just like they expect it from everyone else. Or, do they have a Minimum Wage Worker Exemption? I think not. Wait/Bar Staff want tip for what they say is poor pay. yet they don't give back what they themselves are asking for. Do they tip at Safeways? No, 7-11? No, Taco Bell? No. If you don't tip other minimum wage workers in businesses other that Restaurant/bar then you're a hypocrite.
12
Serving staff should be paid $15/ hour like everyone else and the tradition eliminated.
13
Everyone above is blowing it. Every mother fucker, and by every mother fucker I mean literally 90% of customers, pays with a credit card. This yields a paper trail, which is traceable and taxed. Get this: I work a Friday night, 9 hours, I make $250 tips, literally 1/4 is cash, so math=$63 cash $187 CC, the CC is then taxed and accounted for in my wage, my paycheck which should be ~$90 ($10ph x 9h) actually ends up being like $11 because my claimed CC tips account for wage.

This is how it works. The more you tip, the less I get paid by the boss. Which is fine with me, I'm paying my dumbass apt on Capitol Hill because I am dumb and still live here. I pay my expensive ass rent to listen you you mother fuckers bemoan how much I bemoan for the lack of affordable housing and livable wage, while you order 10 jäger bombs at $9 a pop and stiff me like a coward.

Keep thinking you know something about something, you mother fuckers. Welcome to Seattle.
14
tips rule and are cool and fun to leave for servers. i work in an industry where tips are not customary for most things, but sometimes it really makes my day when someone slips me a few bucks because they enjoyed my demeanor or efficiency.

i hope the right people get the tips and not the wrong people. whelp, thanks, bye
16
@Thrill Killer
The server/bar demographic is vocal due to their relative upward mobility. They are often in college, or pursuing arts careers that will probably be abandoned when they marry up or fall back on some vague social justice non-profit work.

The wage workers in retail or at chain restaurants are looked down upon, mostly because they are desperately supporting families, lack "style", and aren't the cool kids that the latte liberals want as neighbors to relive their lost youth from the 1990's.

These uncool wage workers usually don't ingest enough NPR to have the correct opinions about nuanced issues like letting in millions of low wage workers from the 3rd world. It's important to signal your status by approximating the views you would have if you had spent 4+ at Guilt State.

The push for a $15 min wage, which is how the latte liberals atone for decades of treating the cashiers and delivery people terribly, is now a joke because these same liberals did nothing about the gold rush of gentrification. They feel rich enough now that it's "finally time" to pay them a living wage, after decades of turning the city into a "world class destination" to drive up the values of their cottages at Greenlake or Magnolia, and by importing millions of other low wage workers to compete for the same jobs.

It's very considerate of them, no?

17
Say what you will about Thrill Killer, but you know he is right about the fact that other minimum wage workers do not get tipped, and no one gives a shit. I really would like someone to explain to me why not tipping the minimum wage bartender is a crime but not tipping the minimum wage McDonald's employee is simply the way things work.

You all know it is complete bullshit, will someone explain why without falling back on that bullshit argument that waiters have special skills that mean only they can bring food to tables.

Please wait...

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