What I always do, however, is hand the tip and/or leather folder to the server.

My sister-in-law used to wait tables, and said she always preferred cash tips; that was years ago, so I have no idea if things have changed, but I still try to do that if I have the exact tip amount in my wallet. I never pay cash for the bill, though; the cash-back deal on my credit card takes priority there.

This is part of the waitstaff's salary.

Now, I leave 15% always, 20% for good service and have left up to 30% for a
very unique happening.

It depends on how the tips are generated through the restaurant. I never experienced this, but have
heard of places where they pool the tips. I would think tips on charge would be easier to follow.
When I left the restaurant business the IRS was pretty much taxing only the tips on charges so in that case
the cash could be the waitstaffs.
Then I heard that some restaurants were averaging from turn-over, charge tips and asking waitstaff to declare.

It has been mucho years since I hit the floor so I have no idea what's what.
But I respect the work immensely.

Tikki

what's changed is the enforcement. in the past, they had no real way to get at the cash tips, so they only looked to the credit card tips. you could get away with reporting zero tips beyond what showed up on credit cards.

then they irs started (a) assuming that you got some cash tips and (b) looking to the restaurants for total income to back into an estimate of implied cash tips. they couldn't know exactly, so you still have some wiggle room in what you report, but you generally can't get away with reporting zero cash tips the way you used to. assuming you actually get audited, of course.

again, in any event, notwithstanding that waitstaff pay sucks, the right thing to do is to declare 100% of your tips, period. i have plenty of friends who are or used to be in the restaurant business and mine is an unpopular view but i'm sticking with it.

When you tip do you tip the amount of the meal or the meal plus taxes? I'm curious because where I live we have a 10.5% restaurant tax in addition to the normal 5% sales tax so the difference can be pricey for a large bill

So I tip (20%, usually) on the pre-tax amount.

I'm thinking it is to cover the expense of health/food inspections. Seeing the 10% number, it sounds like it must cover a lot more than that expense.

So they keep the state sales tax low and make up for it with higher taxes on things like restaurants and hotels.

The regular sales tax is a reasonable 5.75%. But for those activities enjoyed disproportionately by tourists and by DC's wealthier (and largely non-native) political class, the prices go up: restaurant meals are taxed at 10% (as is alcohol), hotels are taxed at 14.5%, and parking (in commercial lots) at 18%.

The tip is on the pretax amount. Most servers don't know this of course so I don't know what you do about this.

Flip side is, if anything is "comped" or otherwise reduced in price for some reason, you tip based upon the normal "Full" price. If you bring your own bottle of wine, one might want to consider an adjustment for that cost savings as well.

When I waited tables, I didn't do calculations pre-tax and after-tax. I just looked at the tip as either stingy, about right, or generous. Servers usually don't worry about differences that are less than a dollar or two.

she said that most prefer tips in cash because they can better hide it from (a) the irs and (b) their employer, to avoid having to tip-out to the rest of the staff (if applicable; not all restaurants do this).

i recognize that waitstaff is underpaid and believe in tipping generously (20% after tax is my baseline, 25% is common); however, i have zero sympathy for avoiding taxes or sharing tips with fellow employees where that is the expected practice.

for my own reasons (tracking my expenses) i prefer to pay for everything via cards, and i see no reason to handle tips differently.


on the other hand, mrs. unblock is a bit of a germaphobe and in that light did have a preference for handling plastic rather than cash.

I will sanitize myself first

I don't work in the industry, but when I go to restaurants, I usually always use a credit card. I use it for virutally everything because it makes it easier for me to track my spending.

As for tips, I think credit cards provided a couple of other advantages. For restaurants with tip pooling (sharing tips between waitstaff and other staff), it reduces fraud. It also helps to insure that the full transaction is reported and that the appropriate taxes are paid on it. I'm disgusted by many of the small business owners I know that do undeclared cash based work to evade taxes. I seem this similarly, althought on a smaller scale.

One concern I have is on the timeliness of waitstaff receiving their share of credit card tips. Does that get paid out immediately? Or is there a lengthy lag?

so a delay of roughly 1-2 weeks.

I should also add that I would really like to see all credit cards use a PIN and that the card should never leave the customers hand during transactions. That's not relevant to the topic, but I thought I'd add it in as a vent anyway because staying on topic is not one of my strengths.

They take (or took) taxes out of claimed tips. It's easier to pocket cash, where tips on slips get counted and reported before you ever see them. Plus I used to have to wait 3-5 days to get my tips from slips.

That was back during college. Don't know if things have changed.

As I understand it, many restaurants, and maybe even the IRS are presuming something like a 15%, whether it's on the bill or not. So I tend to put 15% on the bill, and then if I want to give more than 15%, I'll leave it in cash.

Usually around 20%; since I start out with "please", "thank you", and always try to be courteous to the wait staff (even if there's mistakes), I tend to recieve good service.

I figure if I split up the bills, a good waiter can handle any tip sharing situation more economically.

Haele

Where I worked in NV (bartending), we all preferred cash.

I typically gave cash and based it on the total bill.

Then. We were required to claim the higher of 8% of sales or credit card tips. Thing was you also had to tip out bartender and busser so sometimes that number was more than you actually went home with. I tip in cash whenever I can for that reason.

Cash tips are easier all around. Customers using a card get a receipt for the meal. This was in No. VA, DC suburb so many dinners were business related. Customer's receipt was their write off. Tip was separate.

Cash tips saved some work for the cashier - no need to ring up the bill + tip then cash out the tip to the staff. Easier for management to track actual income for the business.

A 10% share of tips, iirc, was standard for bus staff. In our place this was done individually, one on one. End of the night each waiter would hand bus staff 10%. I'd kick it up sometimes if we had a big table - that entails a lot of coordination to pull it all off smoothly. 20% on those tables seemed the right thing to do.

Cash seems to be best all around.

Cash: Split evenly at the end of the shift
Credit: 2.7% credit card processing fee taken out and the rest is split between all that worked that day proportional to hours worked. This allows a better distribution between morning and afternoon shifts. Morning baristas make $15-$30 in cash tips per shift while afternoon baristas typically make $3-$8 cash tips per shift. Every barista gets at least one afternoon shift per week.

I declared my tips every month (it was what all the other waiters and waitresses were declaring as we agreed to do) and rarely saw a paycheck for more than a couple of dollars. They took it out of your paychecks.

With cash it's much easier to spread the wealth with the bus boys, bartenders and kitchen staff. Especially the bus boys who were always so helpful about getting more coffee and bread and water and clearing the dishes on the tables which made the customers feel well taken care of which in turn gave them a reason to leave a good tip. You'd be surprised how much better service waiterpeople can give with good bus boys. The bus boys earn their tips from us.