A European Court has ruled that tips paid by credit card in hotels and restaurants belong to the proprietor, not the employee. Details here.
What a stupid fucking ruling. And they wonder why people here aren’t thrilled at the idea of giving the EU so much power.
Ruadh’s link isn’t working (for me) without registration.
Try this link instead.
It is a disgrace.
There was an interview with the owner who said he even used the tips to pay the staff wages, bringing what they earned (without the tips) up to the minimun wage. And this was ruled ok???
If people wish to leave a tip, pay it with cash. This is the meanest thing I have heard in a while.
Since we are on the subject; How does any waiter/waitress keep track of tips paid by a card? I include the tip on my card all the time, and I often wonder if the employee gets their fair share.
Okay, so the waiters received the tips as ‘additional pay’ in their wage packets/salary cheques/etc – the contract is between the restaurant and the diner, the restaurant then passes on the gratuity to those for whom it was intended (his/her employee’s ie. the waiters) also in non-cash form. Seems okay…
This is an infringement of Human Rights ?
Okay, I can see two issues:
The waiters wanted to avoid paying tax on the tips. However, for a lot of people (example; taxi drivers) the Inland Revenue already assume a level of tip in calculating their income. Are waiters different (seems discriminatory) or should all people in service Industries be allowed tax-free tipping – that second option makes sense…although I still guess it’s general ‘income’ …especially if you’re a tax collector applying the law…
Second issue:
This seems to be the key:
“Tips paid by cheque or credit card belonged to the employer and** could** count towards payment of a minimum wage the court then ruled - a decision upheld by the Appeal Court.”
Either way, if you want your waiter to not pay tax on the tip (seems good to me!) tip in cash – if he/she’s stupid enough to work for someone who’ll deduct the tip from the basic salary, there’s no incentive to provide good service and they should, in any case, be working for a better employer.
Seems a valid market mechanism and solution for the giving of a gratuity by the client to the employer rather than the employee ?
My company mandates that I either tip on the credit card if I pay for the meal by card, or don’t tip at all. Is this a big deal? Well, yeah, if I’m taking clients out to a $1000-$2000 meal, the tip is rather a lot for me to be paying out of my pocket. And I don’t know about you guys, but I’ll be goddamned if I’m carrying several thousand in cash around Europe. So I guess everyone loses.
But wait - I see on refresh that London_Calling makes some very good points. This system, of using tips to get the salary up to the minimum wage, is the same system used by most establishments in the US. And about the tax issue - so waiters and waitresses have to pay taxes on tips? Well, it’s part of their primary income…should people not pay tax on their primary income? I sure had to pay taxes on my tips when I delivered pizzas…
Methinks the real issue is that this could put a squeeze on the “shadow economy” of taxless tips.
In the US most waitstaff keep their CC tips out of their ‘bank’, so that if one table leaves a $5 CC tip and another pays $15 cash for their meal and tip, the waiter would keep the $5 cash tip and take the $5 CC tip out of the cash from the other table. The computers just figure out the final amount owed at the end of the night. And some nights when I worked they actually owed me a few dollars because my CC tips exceeded my cash sales.
I’m glad to know about this, though. When I finally get over there I’ll make sure I leave all my tips in cash.
Tipping is not customary in Europe, like it is in the US.
In fact, I never see tipping as necessary unless there is a big group and the service has been exceptional. Even then, its not guaranteed.
So the idea of making the waitress rely on the tips in order to even make minimum wage is the problem I have with this ruling.
If she had a month of non-tipping customers, does she deserve to get paid less that month for completing the same job?
I don’t see this as an extension of the ‘avoid paying taxes’ argument.
I can understand these arguments in respect to the US, where tipping is standard, almost mandatory. But the custom is not endemic here by any means. There the tip reallly does become a part of the expected income.
And I don’t think its fair to assume people can just ‘up and leave’ if they don’t like the employer. It rarely works like that, IMO.
To answer Spit:
The tickets have the waiter/waitress name, the cc vouchers have the ticket number. It’s settled up at the end of the shift/day from the cash register.
It may be different now, this was from about 20 years ago when I worked as a night auditor.
I’m with Aro on this one. Every time I have been traveling in Europe—from Iceland to Prague and from Trondheim to Naples, including living in Germany for three years, a 15% gratuity has been included in the bill. This was true in three star restaurants and in 10 DM per night gasthauses. The tip was to leave the lose change that came back, if any, on the table. If the ruling is that the 15% included in the bill is the proprietor’s money then this is a lousy decision.
anthracite:
Where the hell do you eat that costs $1000-$2000 a meal?
Here’s how it worked in the US as of about 6 months ago, as a bartender at a chain restaurant that rhymes with DappleFlea’s:
I got paid crap, albeit more crap than a server ($4.25/hr opposed to $2-and-change/hr). When I was tipped on a CC, I was supposed to take the cash out of the drawer and put it in my jar, because if my till was over, SnappleSeas got to take the excess and I was SOL. If I didn’t get tipped, I still got taxed based on my total sales for the day. Yes, that’s right, when you stiff your server, they still get taxed like you gave them 10% (again, in the US).
Anth, ask the waitstaff. I bet they can come up with a solution that works for everyone; London Calling’s so-called solution ignores the fact that there are people right now trying to buy groceries who could give a shit about macroeconomics, and who will suffer because they’re “stupid enough to work for someone who’ll deduct the tip from the basic salary.” Or they’re unable to get another job in a bad world economy.
France. Especially when the French use the fact that you are buying as the excuse to try a few Premier Cru Bordeaux…
No wonder we dislike the French so much. 
The restaurant at the centre of this story is just down the road from my office. It looks horrendously tacky. Maybe the staff would have had more success had they also complained about the cringeworthy decor?
In France, the credit card receipts in restaurants don’t even have a line to add a tip. It’s just the total and then you sign. Well, that’s how it works if you use a non-French credit card. If you have a French credit card, they bring you a little handheld visa machine with the amount displayed and you type in your PIN code and that’s it. Nothing to sign, nowhere to add a tip.
Tips are included anyway in the bill. I agree with concern that the 15% tip already included in the bill is not given to the waiter, but honestly, I didn’t ever think it all went to the waiter anyway. I think it goes to a ‘fund’ from which all salaries and some tips are paid out. It probably has to equal zero at the end of the day.
However, it is customary in France to leave a coin tip of about 1-2 euros (basically $1-2) per table of 2 people. Add incrementally based on the number of people you are with. Same courtesy rules apply in a restaurant in France as in the US, don’t leave a pile of dimes and nickels and definately no copper. That’s tacky, especially if your meal was $50+ (for two).
Now, in really, really expensive restaurants you’d probably leave around $10-20 per two people, but then I’m talking about the $500+ types of bills…
Then they must have ordered this from America, because from my files I have a photocopy of a receipt for 7000 Franc (rounded up via tip from 6185 Franc) from LeHavre. Yes, it’s old, as it is still in Francs (although it does show the Euro amount too on the bill, even though the bill is actually in Franc…odd).
Anthracite, any chance you paid by American Express? I think there is a greater possibility that you get a form with a ‘tip line’ on it because they sometimes use a different machine and forms for AmEx. Or, it’s entirely possible that some restaurants have tip lines, though it is rare. I probably eat at restaurants in Paris 6 times a week (including lunches) and I don’t recall ever seeing a tip line.
As for the Euro amount on the FF receipt, I can’t remember when they started putting that on the receipt, but it was a long time before Jan 1st, 2002 as a way to get people used to Euros. I don’t think it helped much, it seemed more like trivia at the time. Now they put the FF amount as info, which is pretty handy at times!
Ummm…yes, as a matter of fact.
But now - can you tell me what are the last 5 numbers of the card? :eek: 
Be careful in the UK - that often is not the case. Check on the bill & if it says service charge included, then that’s the case (& until this ruling at least, it’s meant to go to the waitstaff). If not, you still need to tip. It’s only in the last few years that this service charge included thing beacame common in the UK & a lot of people were caught out & ended up double tipping at first.
Also, if the service is truly abominable, you should be able to dispute the service charge (no guarantees though).
Aro, I’m surprised you said it’s just not done in the UK, I was brought up with tipping, although only 10%, so the American 15% always seems huge to me. If the service is really good, I tip more, if bad, then I just don’t tip.