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This isn't true. There is a subset of servers who are vocally opposed, because they are quite happy with how things are now. They'll parrot lines like "if you

This isn't true. There is a subset of servers who are vocally opposed, because they are quite happy with how things are now. They'll parrot lines like "if you don't tip well, I have to 'pay' to serve you because the IRS estimates my tip income and taxes me based on that", and neglect to point out that the IRS will not tax you on unearned income, you just have to document what income you did make. I've even pointed this out on HN and had multiple people then try to claim "there's no way to document cash tips to the IRS", but it took me less than 10 seconds to find IRS form 4070 (https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-access/f4070_accessible.pdf https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-access/f4070_accessible.pdf) which is just a monthly attestation. The reality is that most servers don't want to document their tip income, because in very large part, it is significantly higher than the IRS estimate.

datavirtue 3y ago
A staple of the whole system is tax avoidance. It feels good to have that cash free and clear. For quite some time restaurants have assessed the claim amount based on a percentage of the bills paid by cash taken from the tip average on charged payments. Basically, servers rarely have agency over how much they claim in tips. Only if they score far above average tips can they escape any meaningful taxes. Often they just feel like they are making out better because they didn't get assessed as much as they were tipped. People are not good at math. It's clear to me that tipping needs to go away and the restaurant industry needs to retract to a profitable number of participants. Like trucking and other low margin businesses, there is too much worker abuse because it's the only avenue to profit.
- FireBeyond 3y ago
  Have you looked at that form? 5 minutes once a month is what it takes to claim your own tips.

datavirtue 3y ago

A staple of the whole system is tax avoidance. It feels good to have that cash free and clear. For quite some time restaurants have assessed the claim amount based on a percentage of the bills paid by cash taken from the tip average on charged payments. Basically, servers rarely have agency over how much they claim in tips. Only if they score far above average tips can they escape any meaningful taxes. Often they just feel like they are making out better because they didn't get assessed as much as they were tipped. People are not good at math. It's clear to me that tipping needs to go away and the restaurant industry needs to retract to a profitable number of participants. Like trucking and other low margin businesses, there is too much worker abuse because it's the only avenue to profit.

FireBeyond 3y ago
Have you looked at that form? 5 minutes once a month is what it takes to claim your own tips.