If a tip offends a server then he or she can tell me about it and return the money.

I've travelled in all the habited continents. Only once has a server returned a portion of a tip because he thought it was too much and it wasn't in Asia.

That may not be a culturally appropriate thing to do. They may not feel comfortable offending you because you offended them. To them, returning the tip would be seen as offending and embarrassing you, even if you wouldn't have taken it that way.

I would wager that there were plenty more times where the servers were offended but too polite to say anything.

Just to check - you're saying that you believe it's acceptable to insult people that have a different opinion than you? From your response it definitely seems to be the case, but it's so unpalatable that I just wanted to check to be sure. Does this extend to people you come into contact with when you travel or just strangers on the internet?

US waiters almost always rely on tips. They get paid something towards $2 an hour. So if service is good I don't mind adding 15%-20%
On other hand, you go to some countries where they slap that charge regardless of service or stale bread they serve. Now that pisses me off.

That's only true (well, legal*) in some states; in California (1/8th of the population and GDP) it is not, and several of the other high cost of living states as well.

(* doesn't stop some restaurants, although they're often the same ones that illegally take a share of tips. I'll avoid commenting on which ones those tend to be.)

Not that the $7-ish federal minimum wage, or the $9.00 CA minimum is all that generous.

You mean in most states including #2 GDP producer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipped_..._United_States

Regardless, this hardly covers w-2 deduction.

That will most certainly be the case in Japan.

http://www.dol.gov/whd/state/tipped.htm
1) It's not "most" if you're going by the $2.13 federal minimum; that's only 17 out of 50.
2) While most of the rest allow some tipped credit, the minimum cash wage ranges from cents more to over $5. The set under $3 is still a minority of states (7 more, totalling 24 with the above.)

As for Texas, the GDP-equivalent of Texas is only slightly higher than NY (which allows a tip credit, but on top of a significantly higher base than the $2.13 federal one), and with 3/4 the population of CA with only 2/3 of the GDP that is hardly anything for Texans to be proud of.

Huh? W-2 deduction will be based on actual income (which may include imputed tips, but only if not contested.)

$2.13 or $4.13, what difference does it makes. My point was that its below minimum wage. Most if not all will be withheld by establishment towards payroll. Restaurants have guidelines and estimate waiters income on percentage of "daily sales" not per se "actual income". IRS isn't stupid and I personally know one "career waiter" who came to this country on RMS Queen Mary and had 3 IRS auditions throughout his career.

As far as Texas goes lets not forget that TX has zero state tax and lowest unemployment among biggest GDP producers. Also not to forget how many CA or NY corporations have moved down south. Hardly anything to be proud of.

Quite a bit when generalizing to "something towards $2 an hour."

There's an IRS guideline on that. OTOH, higher-end places that do most of their business on plastic will have exact figures, as will places that pool cash tips... so the odds of one d*ckhead's decision not to tip leading to a negative income for a given server is very, very low except at the smallest of places.

You missed the word "income" in that statement; they've got other state taxes.

As for the rest of the points on Texas, I'd counter them, but we're bordering on OMNI territory if not bad-OMNI; let me know if you'd like to continue that over there.

Im not sure what you arguing here if one click of a button and google will give you definitive answer to IRS's “reasonable estimate” calculation. No, its not calculated on daily basis or number of domestic / foreign d*ckheads who don't know the etiquette of tipping.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=IRS+reasonable+estimate

And no, TX doesn't have "other" personal income taxes. And since we aren't taking about corporations tipping waiters we really don't need to go in to state's revenue structure based on sales tax (which is still lower than CA) or corporate taxes.

http://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Small-...urant-Tax-Tips

You're the one who mentioned anything about a daily basis. You're absolutely right that the IRS doesn't calculate it on a daily basis, but restaurants with a reasonable automation system (and the same large places which do most of their business on credit cards in general will have one) are perfectly capable of recording those details daily and breaking it out by pay stub and for the various IRS requirements.

Plus the IRS guidelines are sufficiently lower (and on the employer's side, go across all tipped employees) than the average that they'd have to be a very bad server to actually end up paying taxes on tips they didn't get (and even then should be able to document the lack of tips and collect the wage.).

The tendency of (requirement to?) pay out credit card tips at end of shift without withholding is kind of as crooked business to begin; complaining about losing the "wages" portion of the pay when the rest of us have to wait for a paycheck is a bit silly -- waiters have collected that in advance, by not withholding on tips.

You said "TX has zero state tax" in the context of comparing the overall economy/GDP of Texas to California; if you meant "personal income tax" you should say so.

--

In any event, I've said my piece on the whole "They get paid something towards $2 an hour" oversimplification -- it actually varies quite a bit and the $2 figure applies to a minority of both states and population. Not that the minimum wages even in the highest-wage states are all that generous, as I noted in my original reply.

There's was a very long running thread "I hate tipping, how do we end it" that ended up locked and which this looks likely to turn into if you want to keep quibbling on minor details ... I'd recommend we don't.

I've never understood why the customer is expected to "pay" the restaurant employees via the tip they leave, and also why it has to be a percentage of the bill?

Surely it ends up being a totally stupid system as wait staff in high end restaurants end up with a hefty income from their 20% plus tips just because the prices for the food and drink there are higher than in a fast food joint. Why should they be "paid" so much more than someone doing the exact same job in a cheaper establishment?

I pay the required tip when travelling but begrudge most of it - pay the workers a living wage, put the food/ drink prices up and let the tip be what it is in the rest of the world - a reward for good service - and a reasonable amount!

Because in "higher end" restaurants they share tip with busboys, food runners and bar.
If I had to tip for British food I would ask for a tip myself as reward just for eating it.

Recent off-topic and unduly-personalized posts have been deleted. Let's return to the topic and, avoid discussing members in a personalized way. Ocn Vw 1K, Moderator.