Oh, by no means did I mean we claim EVERYTHING. By law, at least here in Iowa, you only have to claim 10-15% of your sales in the pay period as your tips, which those are then taxed. Almost half of my check is taken out by the taxes on those claimed tips. I don't "forget" to claim all of it, I just don't have to legally. However, credit card tips are a different story, they are taxed directly just as your check is normally, since those are reported as the exact amount.

And to those of you that don't quite understand the whole "parties of "X" or more receive a X% gratuity added to the check", that is generally because the larger parties tend to stay longer and take up the server's area for a longer time than usual, however, in some restaurants you may request that it be waived. I, for one, do not put that on my bills if I have a large group since I think it is not fair either, so I know how you feel about that point. It is just the owners of the place trying to cover any lost profit they may happen to find by having a group stay for longer. Yes the larger groups can be a pain if they would like separate checks, but that is not a problem as long as you tell the server before they make the checks.

 

It sounds to me like germany is the place to be since they have no tipping.
Look, there's no tipping at walmart, there's no tipping at home depot....etc
There should be no tipping anywhere else.
Just pay the workers a wage and ask a certain fair price for a meal and if I come back, then they know they did a good job.
I just get tired of fighting that same battle each and every time, especially when I'm with a crowd.

 

That's part of what I meant. Not the fact that you report your tips, but the fact that you can't remember "exactly" how much you got. The other side to the sidestepping is the fact tips get written off as business expenses. File it under entertainment.