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Killing taxes on tips sounds good, but experts say it doesn’t solve the real problem

  • Most tipped workers already don't pay federal taxes.
  • Increasing the tipped minimum would do more.

Edit: really there should be no minimum lower than the hourly minimum.

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  • Abolish tipping. Make "gratuity" transactions illegal under IRS code so that the only way to "tip" is in cash. Overnight, the tipped staff will quit and the owners will be forced to pay a proper wage if they want to hire anyone.

    Sometimes my company manages a project so well that we hit a performance bonus. I split that bonus amongst the members of that specific team, including prior contributors. I do not lower their salaries by twenty percent and expect the client's bonus to offset the lower salary. If that would be craY for me to do, why isn't it for restaurants.?

  • Tipping is a way for businesses to have the public subsidize not paying their employees enough. It has the added benefit of seeming like it is "pro-worker", in that saying we need to get rid of tipping tends to be unpopular with those relying on tips.

    But if the worker was making a living wage to begin with, they wouldn't need the tips to survive. This highlights the problem: the money the business owner keeps to buy the new yacht is the same money that should be going to the worker, but instead, the worker gets the chance of the public subsidizing their wages while the business owner simply pockets more.

    If tipping were outlawed tomorrow, many businesses would go under because they actually don't have business models that support paying a living wage. This is the real problem, but it is very, very hard to fix since tipping is so socially accepted now.

    • It's not some kind of sneaky thing where if workers are paid with tips the customers pay more. When workers are paid in normal wages instead of tips, the prices are just higher.

      The problem is that many tipped workers love tips because most of the time they can avoid reporting all of them, so they pay less in taxes. Employers like them because it can make their prices seem lower because the price on something like the menu isn't actually the final price someone pays. The people who hate tips are the customers who can never be sure what the final bill will be, and who often have to "tip" a minimum of 10%, often in advance, for service that isn't tip-worthy.

      It's ridiculous to pretend that businesses don't have business models that support paying a living wage, or that without tips they'd go out of business. The only difference is that they can list lower prices knowing that the final bill will include a tip. If tips were eliminated they'd just have to list the items with a slightly higher price. The customers also know that that tip is going to be included. Other than European tourists, nobody goes into a restaurant and thinks that the final bill will merely be the cost of the food they ordered. They know they'll be expected to pay a tip too. Getting rid of tipping would just mean that the tip would be $0, and the food would be a bit more expensive.

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