If you leave it on your charge or credit card, managers at restaurants will in most cases STEAL it from the people who do all the hard work. It will never FULLY make it into the pocketbook of your underpaid, overworked server.

The restaurant that I work at not only charges us a credit card processing fee of 2%, but they do so on our total SALES.

So your dinner bill comes to $100, you leave a $20 tip on the credit card, I’m charged (by my employer) $2.40 for the whole transaction out of my creidt card tips at the end of the night. Your $20 tip to me leaves me with $17.60 tip when it’s all said and done.

Now, if you leave me a cash tip, my employer only takes out $2.

The only way I’ll get the whole tip that you intend for me to is if the customer pays the whole bill and tip in cash.

Anyone know if this is even legal? and who would I go to?

As a former waitress, I can give you several additional reasons.

Denise already touched on one tax-related issue. About fifteen years ago, I was waiting tables and reporting an accurate number every night for tips, as a matter of principle. Most nights this came to more than the 8% of sales that is mandated. One night it did not. When it came time to file a tax return, guess what? I got royally screwed for that ONE night of under 8%–penalties, fees, and extra fees to the accountant who had to figure it all out and fix it. I think it cost me about $75–a measly sum to many, but for a starving graduate student waiting tables to pay for the ramen noodle dinners I was eating, that was a fortune. I was ticked. Do you want to guess whether I continued to dutifully report my exact numbers each night?

Now, for several non-tax-related reasons. One: Some restaurants (especially those where you pay at a check-out station rather than at the table) rely on the organizational skills and good faith of whatever underpaid and probably underachieving person is manning the cash register to keep track of CC tips and make sure they get to the right person. Do you want to guess how many of those CC tips actually get passed on to the person who earned them? Cash on the table, however, is usually spied very quickly by the appropriate person and picked up. Better yet, hand the money to the server directly if you can catch her/him at a non-busy moment–but don’t make a big deal out of it. You don’t need her to kow-tow her gratitude. You just want to make sure the right person gets paid.

Two: Cash is pleasant. It’s nice to have a pocketful of the stuff gradually bulging your apron over the course of the evening. It gives you something nice to think about while you’re grinning servilely at the obnoxious guests who think it’s fun to send you back to the kitchen for something else every time you bring them something, whether they actually need it or not.

Three: Immediate gratification. Some restaurants do in fact wait and pay CC tips at the end of the pay period. This means, instead of rent (or ramen dinner) money tonight, I get it next week some time. While some may say I should learn better money management skills so I don’t *need* the money right NOW, I think most business people would agree that cash flow is a very important factor in any financial plan. You know, time value of money and all that. Go ahead and make sure your server gets the money now–after all, even if they’re flush enough to sock it away somewhere for a rainy day, they’ll get seven or ten extra days of interest on it. Tell the bank that doesn’t matter and see what they say.

So, regardless of whether you approve of servers avoiding taxes or not, there are plenty of reasons to tip in cash when you can. I’ll admit, I do sometimes add the tip to the CC receipt (especially in sit-down restaurants where you pay at the table, so I know the server will see it him/herself) when I don’t have enough cash. But I also often deliberately leave cash in my purse for the specific purpose of tipping. It’s also handy to have some ones on hand to offer street people and homeless folks who ask. But that’s just me, and an entirely separate issue altogether…

If you don’t have a rich uncle and instead 1,200 people each give you $10 then it’s taxable.

Explain how that’s fair?

Pros for Cash –
They get their money – usually. In larger restraunts, with many servers on the floor, it’s easy to “Pick up” someone elses table, esp during breaks, or shift change.
Cons –
They may, or may not get their tip if they’re leaving work – Then again, if their head’s out the door, your service will probably stink.
Cash is great – but it usually gets reported on the back end anyway
(As a busboy at Sams Town for over a year, I got to have the office talk – everyone heads into the office, and “tells” our managers how much we make, once a year, And even for the graveyard shift, all the servers WILL try to pair down how much they “REALLY” make.)

All in all, TIPS stands for:
To
Insure
Prompt
SERVICE.

If you didn’t get it, don’t leave it. As much as we’d appriciate it, it’s better to be held accountable for our service. Yo to Scott at Sam’s Town
Go Drift!
EC

-d

The government did not earn the tip…the waitress did. The waitress is the one doing the work. And the fact that the armed men who’ll come after her if she gets caught not paying them enough protection money are called “auditors” instead of “extortionists” doesn’t change the fundamental nature of what they do for a living, nor does it change the moral imperative to resist them whenever practicable.

Note to folks who know who I am: _I_ don’t cheat on my taxes. I paid accountants and lawyers a whole lot of money to make sure it was _legal_ for me to pay as little as I do. But waitresses don’t have the kind of financial resources it takes to do that.

I do appreciate the “tip” to tip with credit cards from now on, though.. Besides, with credit cards, you know the guy at the next table isn’t going to walk off with it before the wait staff gets back..