People tend to call it a bribe when it’s done with government servants.
But that’s not the same as asking why (or whether) you like the tipping system itself, and you can’t treat answers to those questions as interchangeable.
As I said, given the system that we have, I like to leave a tip because I like paying what I owe. That doesn’t mean that I like the tipping system per se or would prefer it to a different system.
Yeah, I don’t think there’s anything at all hyperbolic or misleading about saying that a lot of people hate tipping. The OP in particular freely uses the terms “resent” and “dislike” about tipping, rather than the more emotionally neutral “disagree with”.
I take your point, but it’s not a distinction I make, and I do treat the questions as interchangeable. For example, yesterday I went to pick up teriyaki for lunch. Added a couple bucks on the receipt, and signed it. I did not feel angry, or upset, or even mild displeasure. I also wouldn’t say I enjoyed it. Just kind of indifferent, in the moment. It’s just part of the process. But, in the aggregate, I don’t like the system, and I think we’d be better off without it.
If you enjoy that moment, but still don’t like the overall system, then… okay. I guess that’s a separate category I didn’t include.
I don’t LIKE that I have to put on clothes before going out in public. But since there’s nothing I can do about that without suffering social stigma, I learn to live with it. And I’d find someone ranting about having to wear clothes on a message board ridiculous.
I have mixed feelings on the system of tipping as a whole. In short, I acknowledge there are a lot of problems with it, although the existence of people who feel it’s unfair to them as customers ranks pretty low on my list. I also recognize that doing away with it will almost certainly leave servers worse off, and I don’t want that. I get tired of the comparisons to Europe, because things are so different here, you might as well complain about wearing spacesuits on the moon since we do just fine without them here on earth. We chronically underpay people here, and it just keeps getting worse. Tipping doesn’t do much to help the underpaid folks in non-tipped jobs, but that doesn’t mean I want to throw servers into poverty along with them out of a misguided sense of fairness.
But OK, I do generally enjoy the act of giving a tip, so I’ll bite. I like it because I know how hard they work and how much it means to them. I like doing nice things, especially for those who need and deserve it.
I’d rather answer the question of “why do we have to keep on tolerating over and over and over and over again the cheapskates who want to pay to the penny and starve the service staff?”
Tolerance of Job.
Two points, if it’s the same 20% being added to the cost, as is done in Europe, is it?, where is the savings that justifies dicking with people’s income streams? If the diner pays the same extra 20%, sounds like change for changes sake.
Secondly, the reason that would definitely not work here is THAT money would NOT reach the servers in full, I can promise you. Employers would invent fees, charge backs, etc, to keep most of that money.
The ‘kickback to the house‘ was first brought in to take money from servers, to increase wages for back of house staff, even managers, (which is heinous and would not be tolerated in any other industry.) Only a small portion of the money siphoned off actually goes there! People leave the money for the server, so it GETS to the server, pretty simple to understand.
[Front of house staff have to stay sweet, look good, and deal with impossible people, with a smile on their face while juggling a very busy room, plus any and all unexpected accidents and events. They earn that money. Back of house is often dysfunctional and tyrannical, even evil to the staff, when things get hairy. They don’t stay nice, look nice, or talk nice often. Restaurant Nightmares is a reality tv show for a reason. They deserve raises alright, not from the servers takings, but from the owners profits. INHO
Tipping represents the clearest expression of ‘free market’ that everyone is always claiming they adore. If you’re not good at it, you’re not gonna make much. But if you are, and it’s a busy place, you’ll get the best shifts and make the best money. When you’re taking in that kind of money you’re lining the owner’s pockets and he loves you. How much money you make is literally, every shift, directly reflecting how hard you work and how good you are at what you do. There are people who thrive on this kind of instant feed back and crazy schedules and hours, they are lifetime servers.
And they deserve to not have their incomes slashed by people who have available the choice to NOT tip if they so desire. Owners aren’t giving up an untaxed, cash, slush fund, which, in a busy restaurant, brings in a LOT! No way are they giving that up because tipping makes you uncomfortable.
To expect hardworking servers and owners of small struggling businesses to take a big slash in income is crazy talk in my opinion. It’s a system that is currently successfully keeping restaurants staffed and in business, you need to reconsider your place in that equation.
I would prefer they give servers a living wage instead of making them depend on tips.
Having said that, I"m becoming more financially stable with age its nice to leave a tip that while to me isn’t a lot of money, can make a servers day (hopefully at least).
I like to tip well when it comes to waiters that are either male or ugly female, otherwise I’d feel like I’m paying for a prostitute with a chick with her boobs hanging out and talking nice to me.
I don’t understand why you think I’m trying to pay less. Or why anyone who dislikes having the bribe the employees wants to pay less. I just want to know, up front, what I’m paying. I don’t want pretty people to be paid a lot more than less pretty people. I don’t want the servers to be motivated to steal from management (free drinks) either. But mostly, I would like to be able to maintain the illusion that the servers are my social peers, and not my servants.
- I tip because if I don’t, the server will not be making a living wage. I’d prefer that America drop the custom and raise prices in restaurants to pay staff more, but that’s not happening. There have been attempts in the industry to do this, but they seem stalled.
- In the grand scheme of injustices in America, some people not liking tipping doesn’t break into my top 1,000 issues. I care about the servers, but not people uncomfortable with tipping.
- I’m aware of attempts by some people in the industry to eliminate tipping and am supportive of those efforts. I think that any attempts to eliminate tipping without raising prices to pay staff more is immoral.
Excerpt:
"Employers are also required to withhold taxes (including income taxes and the employee’s share of social security tax and Medicare tax) based upon wages and tip income received by the employee and to deposit this tax. In addition, employers are required to pay the employer share of social security and Medicare taxes based on the total wages paid to tipped employees as well as the reported tip income. "
Employers and employees owe taxes on the total amount of wages the employee earns, include those that the customer pays them in excess of the bill. If you deliberately turn a blind eye to your employees collecting tips from customers, you are not only abetting their tax fraud, you are committing tax fraud yourself.
Is practically every small restaurant and employee thereof committing tax fraud? Almost certainly. But no one cares because they’re the little guy. Everyone seems happy to pay a few cents more in taxes each year necessary to make up the shortfall because tipped jobs suck and we all acknowledge they deserve to keep more of the money, and small restaurants tend to need every little bit of help too. I totally understand, and if they’re not big players, the IRS won’t see it worth their while to come after them. But it’s still illegal, and is something that large restaurant outfits need to pay close attention to.
As far as I can tell from prior conversations I’ve been involved in, it’s a combination of tax evasion/insurance fraud on the employer’s side and tax evasion/benefit fraud on the employee side. Let’s say we have some servers who work at a restaurant and they average $20/hr between the direct payments made by the employer and their tips. If the servers report tips that work out to say $10/hr , then the employer’s workers comp and unemployment insurance premiums * and the employer’s share of Medicare and SS taxes are going to be based on that $10 hour. The employee reporting $10 an hour in wages/tips may be eligible for food stamps, Medicaid, child-care subsidies, housing assistance and so on but would lose eligibility based on the $20/hr they actually earn. **
I don’t like the whole tipping system, and it’s not even a little bit about the money. Paying $20 plus a $5 tip for a burger is exactly the same amount of money as paying $25 for the burger. It’s about the fact that it doesn’t reward good service- because I’ll be an asshole if I don’t tip even for poor service. After all, the cashier at Target doesn’t lose some of her pay because she doesn’t provide good service. It’s because some situations don’t even pretend to be rewarding good service -every time I’ve had a catered event it’s $X per person plus tax and a 20% gratuity , typically paid in advance and therefore before the service has even happened. The same thing happens with certain vacations. It’s because people somehow believe a valid justification for the whole system is that it enables fraud. It’s because there’s no rhyme or reason to who gets tipped - I’m expected to tip people who deliver food, furniture or appliances to my house if I order from a restaurant, supermarket or furniture/appliance store - but if I order food, furniture or small appliances online, I’m not not expected to tip the UPS/FedEx driver or postal worker who delivers each order.
- In some ( probably most) states , premiums are based on all income including gratuities, bonuses, commissions and the value of meals and lodging among other things.
** Of course, the employees can get screwed by this later on, as any disability/unemployment/SS benefits are going to be based on the fictitious $10 hr, but people aren’t generally concerned about that until it happens.
Okay, but I’m still not seeing where there is obvious evidence of fraud in this case. The Medicare and SS taxes are paid regardless, yes? So unless I’m missing something (quite possible) the difference in this case is that now the owner is also paying extra taxes herself on the additional revenue.
In other words:
1.) tipped employees - employer pay Medicare and SS taxes on the total tipped to the servers.
2.) untipped employees - employer pays Medicare and SS taxes on the increased income paid to employees AND pays additional tax themselves because the service charge included on bills is counted as revenue generated by the owner, whereas the tips were not.
I mean sure they may very well be committing fraud 
. I don’t want to get to dug in defending this person I don’t know who might be as crooked as the day is long. I’m just not sure that is conveyed in that snippet of interview.
If you’re talking about income taxes, businesses don’t pay income taxes on revenue - they pay income taxes on profit which is what is left over after the costs of doing business are accounted for. If the restaurant takes in an extra $1000 by raising the prices to eliminate tipping and passes the entire $1000 to the staff in the form of increased wages to make up for the lack of tips, the business will not have an increase in profit and therefore there will be no increase in income tax. The article mentions exactly which costs went up because of her “increased revenue” and it wasn’t income taxes
revenue and was, therefore, subject to payrolls taxes, insurance costs and other fees that came out of her bottom line.
In other words, distributing the entire the 20% service charge to her employees increased her reported payroll on which she had to pay SS and Medicare taxes and various insurance premiums - which means that the 20% service charge amounted to more than her employees had been reporting in tips previously. I mean , it’s possible that the 20% service charge came to more than her employees were actually receiving in tips previously - but what are the chances that they were actually receiving an average of 10 or 15% and she set the service charge at 20% , effectively giving them a raise? It’s far more likely that they were receiving an average of around 20% but reporting less, and her payroll taxes and insurance premiums went up because the full earnings of the previously tipped employees were now being reported when they hadn’t been before.
Ah, gotcha. Fair enough then 
. Can you tell I’ve never owned a business 
?
Yes, there’s allegedly massive amounts of tax evasion going on.
Lots of articles quote the by 84% but I haven’t found the original source yet.
Like others, I leave a tip because I want people to make the money they wouldn’t otherwise, but it definitely does not sit well with me and hope it changes. I quickly stopped using food delivery services because of this. Delivery fee, and tip, on top of already overpriced food (maybe some other kind of general service fee too)? No.
I have no problem with other folks doing what they want.
Besides the obvious- they need to get paid, I really like rewarding great service.
Which of those three is the “Spread the wealth” option a few of us have advanced?
It’s not 1, because it’s not concerned with monetary wins for tipper or owners.
It’s not 2, and it definitely isn’t the well-poisoning strawman shitshow you’ve concocted for 3.