A Question for People Who Serve in Restaurants

[MadMadge43]

In regards to skirting taxes. In AZ when I was waitressing in the mid 90's the IRS (not sure if it was AZ's or Federal) made arrangements with all three of the restaurants I had worked at that if the servers claimed 15% of their total sales in wages that they would not be audited for that. Some nights you made 20% and other nights you made 10% total, it usually worked out. Don't know if all states do that or not.

[ohjodi]

Cash tips do get stolen from tables, and it is always possible that CC tips can be "stolen" from the server one way or another. 

And while it's possible for a server to evade taxes, I don't think that's any of my business.

I was a waitress for 12 years, and as a customer I feel more comfortable leaving a cash tip.  Since it's often at LEAST 20% of the bill, I usually give it directly to the server when I can.

I fold it up, though, so the server doesn't know how much it is right away. 

[Rei-chan]

From the awesome blog, waiterrant.net:

8. PAY IN CASH! – If at all possible pay in cash. The owner will love you. The waiter will love you. Why? Credit card companies charge a fee for every transaction. (Some unscrupulous owners take the transaction fee out of a waiter’s tips. It’s illegal but it happens.) Now I don’t always pay in cash when I go out. I’m not unreasonable. But leaving the TIP in cash will always make you the waiter’s friend.

Read all of the suggestions for handling your bill here: http://waiterrant.net/wordpress2/?p=168

A bit over the top, and some of the language is crude, but I thought it was basically good advice for the most part!  I tend to read at the bitter waitress website, which can really illustrate everything a server goes through quite well.  I would post the link, but the site seems to be down this evening......

[CrayonOutlines]

A bit over the top, and some of the language is crude, but I thought it was basically good advice for the most part!  I tend to read at the bitter waitress website, which can really illustrate everything a server goes through quite well.  I would post the link, but the site seems to be down this evening......

Yep.  Sometimes he can be crude and sometimes he can be incredibly thoughtful and insightful -- he was once in training to be a Catholic priest (do Catholics call it seminary, too?), so he's well-versed in intellectual things, particularly theology, philosophy, and history.

[PoisonIvy]

I have never heard of the establishment keeping cc tips....I'm not sure how they could, especially if the server does the cash out as well, instead of a register at the front or something like that.  For us, we had not only the nifty little printout at the end of the shift that listed sales, tips, etc, but we also had the actual cc slips, so we knew how much to turn in and how much to keep.......the whole idea of a restaurant pocketing the cc tips seems impossible to me the way most POS systems are set up......I'll have to look into this with my friends that still serve.....

I'm in the UK and heard of it happening here, maybe it's something peculiar to where I live.