Originally Posted by
crabbing
... so far as i know, the IRS assumes that tips, at least in the restaurant industry, to be 15% (and i have never met a server who reported their actual tips, instead of accepting the assumed 15% for their taxes).
IRS assumes 8% is the average. I didn't wait tables regularly, but during HS I would wait tables periodically and the restaurant encouraged us to just take 8% of our sales and write that down as the amount of our tips.
Edit:
Although on researching this it sounds like it's 8% on the restaurant's end, not the server's end...but if all tipped employees claimed 8% of sales as tips then the restaurant would be 8% as well.
http://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Small-...urant-Tax-Tips