“No tax on tips” is an industry plant (newyorker.com)

It's also a joke, because anyone who's worked a service job knows there is no tax on cash tips (wink!)

Some interesting points: ~40% of tipped workers don't make enough to get taxed anyway, no tax on tips would actually advantage better paid workers like casino dealers who don't need the help. NToT is described as a campaign to distract from minimum wage increase initiatives.

How about the tips that I get as a musician?

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All bonuses soon to be labelled as tips.

"No tax of tips" is one of the most brilliant political ploys ever. You really gotta give Trump credit. It doesn't really cost anything, businesses love it, and you can trot it out as a victory for the working class while you screw them on their health care or energy costs.

Don't forget to reduce your tips by the percentage they were previously being taxed, since it is all charity anyway.

Hopefully this becomes another straw that will eventually break the camels back and we get rid of tipping all together. Every restaurant in the world does not need tips to survive, except for the ones in the US.

I think with any conversation about tips it is really important to recognize that laws vary dramatically across states[0]. I think talking about this can really drive at the real underlying issues with tipping.

IMO most discussions about tipping are a distraction. "Divide and rule" if you will.

  == THE LAW ==
  (or my best understanding. IANAL) 

  For most of the west coast (AK, CA, OR, WA): there is no separate "tipping wage". Tips are *always* on top of *at least* state minimum wage. There is only one minimum wage, so tipping is always a "bonus". 

  Other places, there are two "minimum wages", but that's confusing because at the end every employee has to make at least the normal minimum wage. The difference is that employers can use tips as credit against this. So, with the exception of Georgia (WTF GA!), employees *must* make the state's minimum wage (default federal). Using federal (min wage = $7.25) an employer *MUST* pay you *no less than* $2.13/hr. This is conditioned that you have made *at least* $5.12/hr in tips. The problem here is what tips count to what wages. Per day? Per week? Per paycheck? DOL says "workweek"[1]

  ============

So the real (main) problem is actually just straight up good old wage theft. Anyone who is not getting at least minimum wage is suffering from wage theft.

I've heard stories of employees not getting a paycheck "because employer thought it was all tips" (illegal b/c they credited too much) or very small paychecks with the explanation that the employer over-credited tips. There's at least a decently straight-forward way to show what can be credited, and this is why there's the tip amount that you log. Ignoring cameras, the burden is on the employer to prove that they can make these credits, so that line-item on the bill is important (IANAL)

  Personally:

I think the entire discussion of tipping often only serves as a distraction to wage. Like there's a lot of person to person fighting of how much we should tip (including not tipping) and frankly, doesn't this discussion often boil down to wage theft? I mean ignoring the already illegal problem of wage theft, what makes a server (who gets tipped) any different from a cashier (who doesn't get tipped) as an employee. Their jobs differ in duties, but we're talking about wage and *fair pay* here. If all the laws are followed, a tipped employee strictly benefits from tips. They have a statistical wage but that wage is max(base_pay, state_minimum) + random_value.

So I think 90% of discussions around tipping end up just being a distraction to create a fictitious divide of "minimum wage workers" vs "tipped workers"[2] who should instead be working as a coalition to increase the floor. They are both minimum wage earners! The main difference is primarily that tipped employees are just more likely to suffer from wage theft, due to how they are paid. But that's also something that both experience, just at different rates.

  TLDR:

  Getting rid of tips as a concept is a simple solution to the wage theft problem, but isn't the real problem just good old fashion wage theft? (second problem being "is minimum wage minimum"?)

[0] https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/minimum-wage/tipped

[1] https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/15-tipped-emplo...

[2] Simplifying by ignoring tipped earners with higher than min wage base pay (we can extend as needed)

How is an expected tip different from a commission other than who pays?

This is rather brilliant. * make it look like the government is stealing “gifted” money * stop taxing it * turn as many jobs as possible into tipped jobs supposedly for the person’s benefit * really the employer wins since they’ll pay less and claim “tips”

I worked as a server for about a year in college, and when we would check out at the end of the night, literally, everyone would just put zero. As in they didn't earn anything. Every time. I'm sure it mess with the taxes in someway or another.

According to my accountant for my wife’s small business (nail and wax salon) this tax law change will have a significant positive impact on her staff. Not sure what to make of this article, it seems pretty disingenuous.

It’s crazy that this still happens in the US.

Tipping is a thing of the past. Pay for your meal and have the restaurant pay their people for their work. End of story.

“No Tax on Overtime” ditto. As I understand it if it’s overtime negotiated through a union contract, you’re out of luck.

I don't like tipping as much as the next guy, but this isn't about that. It's about government overreach and privacy.

Governments tracking small transactions like tips and taxing them should bother everyone. That rag, the New Yorker, knows that of course.

Aren't we creating incentives for workers abuse:

- No tax on overtime: so now making them work 60 hours a week is cheaper for the employer

- No tax on tips: so the tip based payment model is cheaper

I can kind of see the average traditional service work position to shift into a Uber-esque model where you are a essentially a gig contractor. The worker takes the full risk for slow days, and the business owner does not have to pay you a salary, as everything comes from the customer.

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My tips have been going down progressively, when I moved to the US I was taught 20% is "normal", now I tip 15% at MOST at restaurants and at MOST 5% on take out.

I'm tired of being shamed to pay more for less.

Also whoever was in charge of teaching staff to "turn away in shame" when the tipping screen is shown needs to go to some sort of gulag.

The most galling part is how the industry manages to manufacture worker consent through PR spin and management plants in hearings

What confuses me most is when you are given the option to give a tip before any service has been given. On deliveroo, for example, I have the option to tip the driver while I'm at the checkout. Why would I give a reward for good service when I have no idea if the service is even good? There's already a rider fee as part of my bill, so it doesn't make any sense to me to give them more money at that point

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Trump is clearly the most powerful president of all time, and he basically controls everything.

You know what would actually help workers in tipped positions? Going after wage theft. Taxes on tips are a drop in the bucket compared to wage theft.

Doesn't this also open a huge opportunity for tax evasion?

Say I am a small business owner selling a $90 item which is $100 with state sales taxes. I say if you are willing to tip me at least $90, the item is $1. The buyer saves $9 from state sales taxes, and I save on income taxes because tips are exempt from tax.