Spoilers: Tips are taxed. It's just that loose cash without a paper trail is extremely hard to track for the IRS and most waiters aren't committing enough fraud

Spoilers: Tips are taxed. It's just that loose cash without a paper trail is extremely hard to track for the IRS and most waiters aren't committing enough fraud to warrant the manpower. Tipping won't go away until restaurant owners stop being dorks about the whole matter. They also benefit because the unaccounted for tips don't count as income to them, and thus they benefit as well. The bottom line is, patrons get sticker shock when they see the real price of a meal. This happens when restaurants change prices after a few years because the cost of product goes up, or if they switch to paying a living wage to their employees. If the culture as a whole doesn't switch, then people are just going to keep supporting poor labor practices by the industry because they typically have their own issues to focus on. >>That is why most restaurants that have tried no-tipping have gone back to it. Citation absolutely needed. Many restaurants have never tried it, and many of the restaurants that have tried it kept it.