Servers are taxed as though they were tipped according to the standard. Thus, if you order $30 worth of food and drink and don’t tip them, they have to pay the tax on that from whatever else they earn.
If you’ve been paying attention, you’ve probably noticed that tipping tends to work out to the benefit of servers. You being cheap won’t convince anyone to go out and get a better job if they generally earn more than minimum wage.
Yes, and I find so many British traditions, such as royalty, to be quite arrogant, so I’ll feel free to scream “the Queen’s a bloody cunt” as she passes by.
While I’m at it, I find taking my shoes off in Japanese houses/restaurants to be stupid so I won’t do that, and I’ll free to hand people things with my left hand in India. Why should I conform to the stupid ways they do things?
I can live with taking my shoes off in houses, it’s not offensive to me in the slightest. However, you might find the Japanese house owner tells you to fuck off, it’s your choice.
You can call the queen a cunt for all I care too, I’m sure she’ll be upset.
I really wish this was the pit so I could tell you exactly what I think of your sorry ass. in one breath you say “if they don’t like the way it’s done, they shouldn’t be servers” and the very next time you open your belching flanhole it’s to say you’ll continue to go to restaurants that operate on such systems, but you WON’T OBSERVE THEIR PROTOCOL? if you disagree with the system, sir, I suggest you keep out of it altogether instead of exploiting it, which is exactly what you are doing. how about instead of us having to get different jobs to avoid getting fucked by people like you, you quit coming into places of business whose practices you despise and stealing from the employees?
Cite?
Not to be rude, but this is often claimed and I’ve never seen it supported. I know the practice here in Canada is that the servers have to then claim what they made in tips, and practically speaking they invariably claim a comically low total, so most servers actually get the majority of their tips tax free.
So, in the USA, how much are they taxed? What exactly is the calculation? How does the government know what the server would normally make in tips?
I tip plenty, of course, because I’m not an asshole, but I’d still like a cite for this claim.
RickJay, as far as I know, you’re taxed on your declared wages. however, we can’t really get away with declaring a comically low amount, because lots of our tips are on credit cards and are thus recorded within the system. if we got paid entirely in cash, we could claim whatever we want, and often do (within some reason, so our employers don’t get suspicious) when the opportunity arises. the only thing I have to pay that has nothing to do with how much I actually make is tip-out, which is again a small percentage of my sales.
They make at least the minimum wage. If they don’t get enough tips that those tips plus $2.13 is at least minimum wage, then their employer is required to pay them minimum wage.
At least, according to the above-cited law.
And if I may make a suggestion, Future Days: Do not continue posting to this thread. You won’t change any minds. (Obviously you are free to ignore this advice if you choose.)
I know diddly about tax laws, but here’s my experience. In Chicago at least, a number of years back, the IRS started cracking down on just what you’re saying, servers claiming a ridiculously low amount of tips.
Around that time, the businesses myself and my friends worked for started “tracking” what servers made, I assume to cover their own asses in case of an audit.
At the end of the night, you generally get a printout of your total sales for the evening. Depending on where I worked at, most of the places would record a percentage of my sales, and guesstimate that was what I made as tips. Whether or not they had to transmit this information to the government, I do not know.
I do know if you got audited as a server, and the IRS subpoenaed records of your sales, and the figures didn’t match, you’d be in trouble, because it happened to a couple friends.
Beyond that, this total amount of sales rung by each server is used to figure out how much the server needs to tip support staff (busboys, service bartenders, food runners…in high class restaurants, back waiters and Captains might also be getting a share). They generally paid the same jack-squat we do from the restaurant/bar, so they work for tips from us.
Let’s say I rang 100$ in sales while serving Future Days’ table. He stiffs me like the cheapass he claims to be, but the restaurant assumes I made at least 15 dollars off his table.
At one restaurant I worked at, I had to tip my busboy 5% of that, and the bartender another 10%. (The fine dining restaurant I worked at I was lucky to take home 60% of what tables would leave as tips, due to the amount of support staff employed in serving there, the heirarchy was busboy-back waiter-front waiter-Captain)
Minimum, mind you, because if your support staff is busting their asses for you, they’re helping you make money, and you’d throw them a few extra bucks, and they continue to bust their asses for you, because you take care of them. Scratch their back, they’ll scratch yours. No one can fuck up a server’s night like a bartender who is pissed off at her for stiffing him.
So, out of that non-existant 15 dollars the restaurant assumes I made off el cheapo’s table, I have to tip my bartender 1.50 and my busboy $.75. I also have to claim taxes on the 15 dollars I didn’t make. I’m not even going to begin to try and figure out those numbers, because that’s what my accountant gets paid for.
And voila, I have just now paid $2.25 in tipouts, plus whatever in taxes, for the dubious privilege of serving Future Days’ table.
What do you servers following this thread want to bet he’s that same asshole who sends you running all over hell and creation because he can’t ask for everything he needs in one trip, and complains about every damn little thing too? 
By the way, that may very well be the law, but in practice, I have never seen it once happen, and I’ve worked in the bar/nightclub/restaurant industry for 15 years. I promise you I have most certainly seen girls leave nights without making minimum wage for her shift.
Usually in tears.
This is most certainly true; I’ve been in the biz for a decade myself, and I’ve never worked for nor heard of a restaurant or a bar that actually abides by the “$2.13 an hour UNLESS you make less than minimum wage after tips” law.
I’ve also walked out with sick money, and seen waiters/waitresses walk out with sick money.
And thus the average is born, which is why so many people are still in this line of work, myself included.
Most places get away with it by going on the weekly average, vs. the daily average. That doesn’t mean that plenty of people don’t walk out of a ten-hour shift with $19 dollars; that just means they’ll probably break the $5.15 weekly average over the weekend. On some other day.
The saddest thing about people like Future Days, besides the fact that he’s from another country and theorizing on a culture about which he obviously knows nothing, and about which he NEEDS to know nothing because he doesn’t live here, is that his “logic” could justify just about anything, and he’ll never admit it. “Corporation X makes so much money that they won’t miss Object X, so I can just go ahead and take it.” “Person Y makes more money than I think they should, and I don’t approve, so I’m free to screw them out of their money and if they don’t like it they should get another job. They’re stupid for putting themselves in a place where I can screw them!”
This is so far from logical or defensible that it’s kind of amusing.
And it will remain amusing as long as he’s feeling right and justified, and he isn’t able to implement his absurd theories, on the other side of the pond.
Everyone needs to realize—especially those from places other than the United States (and maybe Canada, too, I don’t know)—that in the States, our servers aren’t even paid federal minimum wage. In most places, they’re paid $2.13 an hour (£1.19, $2.54 CDN, 2.85 AUD, 3.09 NZD, €1.74) before taxes. They report their tips every night and then the taxes for the tips (and the wages, too, of course) are taken out of their paycheck. My friend who worked at the Macaroni Grill in Tulsa would often get a zero check, meaning he’d get a paycheck, but the amount on it would be “$0.00”. I think his largest paycheck (except for the ones he got during training) was under $10.00 for a two-week pay period (convert it yourself this time :)). This meant that his rent, his car payments, his clothes—everything was paid for with his tips. People in this part of the country (or a lot of them, anyway) seem to be under the impression that a tip is just “a little something extra” for their server, but it’s more than that. It’s how the server makes his or her living.
I started this thread last year about a friend of mine who refused to pay a server for what I thought was an unbelievably minor infraction on the server’s part. A lot of people, like Turek (assuming he’s American), simply don’t tip, no matter how good the service was. Some asshole fundies will leave religious tracts instead of a monetary tip.
In these situations, you’ve essentially got a worker who’s not getting paid for a service they’ve provided. Would you consider it appropriate to not pay your hairdresser or mechanic if they said “God bless you” when you came to get your hair cut or pick up your car, even though you might not be Christian and might find that somewhat offensive? Would you consider it acceptable to give them a stack of Chick tracts instead of money? Or would you think of paying them as simply optional, no matter how good a job they did? Of course not (or, at least, I would hope not). But for some reason, people think it’s perfectly acceptable to subject restaurant servers to this kind of injustice.
Even if you don’t necessarily like the attitude or appearance or whatnot of a worker (such as the above-mentioned mechanic or hairdresser), you still pay them. The only time it would be acceptable to not pay them in full is if the quality of the service they provided was significantly poor, and maybe not even then*. Again, I don’t mean the attitude they provided the service with, but the quality of the service itself.
All I expect from a server is attentive service and a reasonably pleasant demeanor. That’s the service they’re there to provide. If they can manage this, there’s no reason to ever tip them less than fifteen percent (and yes, I know some of you strongly disagree), though I personally always give twenty percent. If the service is really horrible, I’ll still probably tip about ten or fifteen percent, but then I’ll complain to the manager on duty. Which, if you think about it, is the way it would work anywhere else. If a sales clerk at a department store is rude to you, you still pay for your items (and thereby pay his or her wage), but you complain to a manager. Why should it be different in a restaurant?
Again, this only applies in the United States (and maybe Canada). Other countries pay their servers a decent living wage and so tipping really is just a little something extra there.
*I’m thinking mainly of the hairdresser here. I mean, you still have to pay for the haircut, even if you don’t really like it, right? Well, unless he or she shaves your head when you didn’t request that or something similarly absurd.
(Upon actually reading the whole thread, I realize that a lot of what I’ve said is redundant, but what the hell…)
If this was in Tulsa, may I ask what restaurant it was?
Pot, kettle…
chuckles Oh, definitely. If I hadn’t gone back to dancing, I’d probably still be waiting tables or cocktailing, and I likely will again when I quit dancing for good (33 and the looks are still holding cheer). Money’s good, and I’m used to the night hours.
Still, it doesn’t make the nights you barely make enough to get a dinner at McD’s and a pack or two of smokes any easier, especially if rent’s due.
The tipping situation also gives a lie to what we hear in the UK regarding how cheap it is to dine out in the USA. If you have to factor in another 20% -30% on top of the “headline” price you see on the menu then things aren’t as cheap as they first seem. BTW the average tip expected in a UK restaurant is 10% , but then the staff are paid the minimum wage of £5.10 ($8) an hour.
More like 15-20%, but yeah, you can’t go by simply the price of the food. If you order a $10 item, assume it will cost you $11.50-$12.00, depending on the level of service.
We have very good pot in this country, and it’s just plain stupid that it is against the law. But, please, feel try to partake when you are here; it’s easy to find, just ask those nice uniformed gentlemen in the cars with lights on top. Drive very quickly until you find them.
Or did you mean that you don’t respect stupid laws if there is no consequence to you, even if there is to others? Menu prices are set based on cost to the restauranteur; if the laws are changed to suit your views, then you will pay the increased amount for the meal. One way or another, it will cost you unless you choose to get all sanctimonious and stiff the wait(er)(ress).
Perhaps we should recognize that different countries have different policies, and they aren’t directly applicable to each other. I am happy to follow whatever is customary in the UK, for example, and would expect visitors to our country to do the same.
I do virtually the same thing. Food tax in Massachusetts is 5%, so I triple it and round up to a reasonable amount. I’m pretty much low maintenance, and don’t put any demands on the wait staff (other than refills on coffee 
).
Anyone work in any branch of food service here? (I did for a very short period of time and swore that I would never do it again.) If you have, you know that it is a thankless task. You come home smelling like food, and cigarettes if your state/city allows smoking. You’re on your feet all through your shift. You can’t do it by rote as you can in other jobs; every order is different, and some folks delight in making things as complicated as they can. You’re lifting huge trays of food. Hungy people can be angry people, and if you add cocktails to the mix it can be positively volatile and venomous. etc, etc. Look at me, I’m in an office on company time posting to this website. Imagine a waitperson having the time to do that; you’d be screaming for your salad.
I’d have to say that I overcompensate (in percentage) at the less expensive restaurants. The waitpeople there do just as much work as the trendy places, but the food costs so much less. I don’t quite understand why bartenders are so well compensated compared to waitpeople (except that alcohol is involved), but if there is a bartender here who can make the case I’d love to hear it.
I really don’t go out to restaurants or bars very much, I’d rather stay home and try out a new recipe. But, when I do go out with friends I believe in respecting the policies that apply to *all * diners.
Well dont mind me as I walk out without leaving a penny for the waiter.
If I’m a regular, I often tip more, because it comes back to me in the form of better service and freebies. So, for example, at the bar where I go to read & have a beer (and watch “Teen Titans”), I over tip, but the managers and bartenders buy me beers and give me shots fairly frequently. And I get happy-hour prices for as long as I’m there.
I’d recommend Future days (whose username here, by the looks of it, are numbered) read a book called Nickel and Dimed, by Barbara Ehrenreich. It’s a good look at how very difficult it is to get by on minimum wage in this country, as well as how thankless and painful a job serving tables can be.
I wouldn’t count on it doing any good. future days could apparently stiff a working mother trying to feed three kids or a college student struggling to pay tuition so he could get a better job without batting an eye.
Because bartenders
a.) have the booze, and
b.) the power to distribute it as they see fit.
As noted in this thread, the smaller the tab the more likely the tip percentage will be much higher than 15%. Bartenders sell a lot of merchandise for five bucks and under; a good rule of thumb in most bars is a buck per drink.
If you take care of a bartender, they take care of you; your drinks get stronger, they’re made more quickly (you don’t have to wait very long even in a really busy bar b/c you’re their first priority) and if you keep showing up, your tab will generally shrink as well.
The reverse (of all of that) is also true.
Put very simply, bartenders are the hosts who make everything happen, for good or evil, and that’s how and why we make our money.