I used to waitress and can appreciate that it is a tough job. I didn't make much money and never expected to. As a college student, it was the only job I could get. Now that I can afford to dine out, however, I tend to avoid eating out in places with table service. By the time tax and tip are added, the cost of my meal just increased by 25%. Of course, I do tip 15% when I eat out, but generally I prefer to save a bit of money by eating at restaurants like Panera where I place my order, wait for my food, find my own seat and clean up after myself. Even better, I learned to enjoy cooking! I do enjoy cruising while on vacation and am very happy to pay the suggested amounts for the workers. They have much better skills, personalities and attitude than waiters at the average restaurant. I avoid skycaps and bellmen - thank goodness for wheeled luggage! I am one of the 27% who leaves money for the maid. I happily tip my newspaper delivery man each Christmas. Paper is always on time and on my porch. Now that's service!

+2

High-end Japanese hotels will often add a service charge, but that is (in my experience) completely specific to hotels. I also don't think I've ever seen a 20% service charge (10% sure).

I don't have a problem with service being itemised on a bill. If service has been poor, there is no need to pay the whole service charge. I've done this in the past in restaurants in the UK - I've reduced the service charge amount and indicated that I will be happy to speak to a manager about why.

I've never felt the need to do that in Japan however; as service is almost uniformly excellent.

I love some of the restaurant comments and it's a little shocking that people are so willing to stiff waiters in the US when there was nothing wrong with the service. They claim it's simply legal. Loud farting in the middle of the restaurant is also legal, but it doesn't mean you should do it.

Have you noticed that a lot of South Beach automatically adds 15% or 18% to the bill now? It didn't used to be that way years ago. Guess why it changed.

Some nationalities probably have a reputation in some areas for refusing to adopt "when in Rome" ethics. Do you feel there are no consequences for this?

Since I've been in the Chinese restaurant business since I was young I can say a few things.

1. Chinese restaurants in Chicago(at least Chinatown's and my uncle's) waiters pool their tips, with a portion going to the busboys if they have them. If a waiter is sucky while another is excellent, they both get the same tip. It's a crappy system but otherwise others will not pitch in on other tables when it gets busy. (My poor mom got shafted all the time, but that's how the dice rolled)

2. If you tip ridiculously well, waiters remember and will give you extra things.

3. As a waiter/food packer, I really prefer you to order take out if you going to eat the food at the restaurant. If you take out, all I have to do is pack your food. If you dine in, I have to wipe your table, bring your food to you, bring your drinks(make your drinks), fill your water, bring you extra napkins and other things, sweep the food after your messy children, wash your dishes(yes, I wash your dishes since it is ridiculously small), and do the place settings all over again.

What do I have to do when your order takeout? Pack your food. I mean if all I had to do was really just bring the food to your table, and then wipe it fine, don't give me a tip. I would be cool with that, and some people do get take out then I move all the place settings and they just sit down. Sometimes I'll still give them water. Although then I have to clean up after them and they're pretty much always messy. But I'm fine with them not giving me a tip for that or at them for doing that.

Since I get the same salary for doing less work, for those that do not tip, please order take out?

4. There is no tipping service in China. Unless you are a VIP (like really I mean VIP and not those cards they give out like candy sometimes), good luck trying to find someone to take your order, find out where your order is and rush the kitchen, get napkins, extra tea or whatever, add dishes to your order, get someone to clear the table.... added to the fact there are TONS of people just standing around. But they wont' help you if it's not in their job description. In fact, crappy service is really the norm here.

Yes, Japan has excellent service. But that's something in their culture, not as a result of NOT tipping or paying servers well. Also food is not that cheap
>.<;
Hong Kong has good service when people expect it, so when it is not a hotel or 4 star restaurants... it is average. Sometimes they are even rude and condescending. Of course, if it's a top tier restaurant, service must be good because otherwise with so much competition they would go to another high class restaurant.


That's my take on it. I'm on a poor budget but I still tip 15-18%. At least give something. It doesn't have to be 15%. Just nothing less than a dollar because that's kind of insulting. at that point keep it.

My team also whinge about doing work - especially work that they believe could have been avoided. I do point out to them that if it weren't for the work, they wouldn't have jobs.

So true... A diner tips the server as a reward for the service he provides; a server, likewise, tips the bar and the busser for the service they provide. Just as the diner is the server's customer, so to is the server, essentially, the busser's customer.

I have no problem at all with a line for additional gratuity, as the amount added is not always as high as the customer would like to leave. What bothers me is when you see the automatic gratuity added as a line item on the bill itself, so that the credit slip doesn't clearly indicate that a gratuity has already been charged.

That's specific to the individual restaurant, and can't be generalized accurately. At the restaurant I worked at several years ago (a major national "casual-dining" chain), there were suggested amounts for the server to top to the bar and to the busser, but the actual tip-out was not required or monitored by the company. As mentioned, though, failure to tip out fairly would result in the server, and thereby his customers, receiving poor service in the future from the affected employees. If a busser has 6 tables to clean, it's easy enough for him to first clean the tables of the generous servers, and only the help the cheap one on he has nothing left to do.

While I, as a former server, have absolutely no qualms about tipping poorly or not at all for terrible service (while also tipping generously for excellent service), it is absolutely wrong to base tips on the quality of the food. The server doesn't control the food quality; all he can do is serve what the kitchen puts out. The kitchen doesn't suffer when you tip poorly, the server does, and that's why the level of the gratuity should be based solely on the performance of the service.

I'm late to this thread, but wanted to point out that this post is just plain wrong.

The US government requires you to declare ALL of your income, including all income from tips. If the IRS feels you are not declaring all of your income, they will audit you, and if you were not declaring all your income, you will be liable for fines, interest, and perhaps even face criminal tax evasion charges.

Now, the IRS doesn't know how much cash in tips you collect. But, if you declare what they think to be a very low amount of tips - under 8% of sales is one generally accepted threshold where the IRS will pay more attention - or significantly less than your credit card tips would indicate - the IRS is more likely to come audit you.


You are absolutely not, however, required to ever pay taxes on tips you didn't get. Just fill out your tax return accurately and you'll get a refund if you've had too much withheld.


Of course, if you are working as a waiter/bartender and you are averaging less than 8% of sales as tips, you almost certainly suck at your job and should consider a career change.

exactly ^

you have one or two on here trying to get everyone riled up that these guys are losing money when they are not.. or should not be.. if they are claiming more income than they actually earned.. there are bigger problems than lousy service

Simple. Tip daily!

Or not tip at all, seeing housekeeping staff are paid to do their job which is included in the hotel's price.

I have always had mixed feeling in regards to tipping.
In the past, when used to be an office guy, and running from to office to office to collect bills, I only got once or twice a tip.

When people came into my office (I was an employee at that point), I never expected a tip, and felt it was even inappropriate to receive one. I am paid to do this job, and the customer should expect excellent service. Would the customer otherwise not deserve to receive good service?

Unless there were extra's that were not included in the price, I think that we should get rid of the tipping culture. Otherwise, we might start to tip flight-attendants, pilots, cashiers, busdrivers, lounge dragons,...

Employees report tip income to the IRS on Form 4070 and are supposed to keep daily logs of tips, which are reported to the employer. See IRS Pub 1244 for details and instructions: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p1244.pdf.

The employer is required to withhold taxes on reported tip income. If the reported tip income is less than 8% on an allocated basis, then the employer must withhold taxes from the employee's paycheck as if the employee received on average 8% in tips. The information is reported on Form 8027 and the withholding on the tips (or imputed tips) is submitted to the IRS on a regular basis. See http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f8027.pdf.

The employer can calculate imputed tips using one of 3 allocation methods: (a) actual gross receipts of customers served by each employee; (b) number of hours worked; and (c) good faith agreement with the employees for allocation of tips. For example, under method (a), if the employee served tables that ordered $5,000 of food in a given week, the employer would withhold tax based on the greater of reported tips or $400 (i.e., 8% of $5,000).

+1
Why can't Americans simply do what is expected and receive a fair wage like the rest of the planet?

Why can't the Japanese do it our way? After all, we're right and they are wrong.

Oops, maybe you said that the Japanese are right and we're wrong.

Or the Japanese are right doing it the Japanese way while in Japan and Americans are right doing it the American way while in America.

Maybe the Japanese should do it the American way while in Japan and Americans can do it the Japanese way while in America. Wait, that's not it. Maybe...

The Japanese can do it the American way while in America and the Americans can do it the Japanese way while in Japan.

Similarly, the New Zealanders can do it the Icelandic way while in New Zealand, or should the Icelanders do it the New Zealand way while in Iceland?