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“No tax on tips” is an industry plant

newyorker.com

161–170 of 618 posts

Re: “No tax on tips” is an industry plant

#161
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The crazier part is that it's spreading to more industries and more countries thanks to Americans thinking they should tip everyone everywhere. Thanks.

No, it's spreading because corporations are waking up to what an insanely good deal "pay my employees for me" is. In my state an employer is only responsible for raising an employee's effective wage (for the entire pay period) to minimum wage if the tips don't. You can tip someone working as a waiter $100 and unless they've already hit minimum wage for that pay period, all you're doing is handing $100 to the owner be…

my wife worked under this regime of we-pay-below-minimum and you make it up with tips, when she was a student. it’s illegal in multiple states. including the state where it was done to her. but if you need that sort of job you’re typically probably not in a position to go after your employer…

Re: “No tax on tips” is an industry plant

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I live in California and this isn't true here I made a longer comment in the main thread[0] because I think there's a tendency for conversations about tipping to degrade as people are making different assumptions based on the different laws of where they're from or grew up. To be clear: - Any worker that is not making *at least the state's minimum wage* (including tips) is suffering from wage theft. (with the excep…

Servers, often, seem to think it's our (the customer's) obligation to compensate for the sins of their employer. "Many restaurant owners illegally don't actually follow this law". "Report them to the DOL". "I don't want to do that. You should tip me to make sure I have a livable wage instead."

Perhaps this would happen less often if people didn't just spread hopelessness

Re: “No tax on tips” is an industry plant

#163
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bud, literally nobody gives a shit about waiting on you. They are literally only doing it for the money. People in Australia are still doing it for the money, even if you don't realize it.

Restaurant staff are still nice in Australia, and friendly. They don't HAVE to be, but they also don't have to do a bunch of unnecessary stuff to play the tips game, like fill up water that's barely empty or check in on how you're going all the time. Maybe people in America like a "service heavy" experience, and the only way to get it is tips?

I think that’s pretty much the gist of it. People enjoy the diner-style pampering, and the only way to get that kind of service is if the employees are coerced to do it in order to get a living wage.

Happy employees who earn good salaries would not submit to ass-kissing and degrading work.

Knowing this is what makes the often terrible service in the Netherlands a bit more tolerable :)

Re: “No tax on tips” is an industry plant

#164

It’s crazy that this still happens in the US. Tipping is a thing of the past. Pay for your meal and have the restaurant pay their people for their work. End of story.

Having just come back to the States from a trip to Europe — sheesh, I hope not. The service at restaurants everywhere in Europe was at best mediocre, and typically god-awful. Incentivizing good service is good.

Yes, yes, "but the price on the menu says..." Whatever. If you're in the U.S., it's normalized that the price you actually pay is 20% higher, assuming they treat you well. Restaurants don't typically print the tax on their menus either, and yet no one tears their hair out over having to pay sales tax, and various city taxes, etc etc.

The service is so, so much better in the U.S. because of tipping. Tipping culture is good.

Re: “No tax on tips” is an industry plant

#165
What confuses me most is when you are given the option to give a tip before any service has been given. On deliveroo, for example, I have the option to tip the driver while I'm at the checkout. Why would I give a reward for good service when I have no idea if the service is even good? There's already a rider fee as part of my bill, so it doesn't make any sense to me to give them more money at that point

Re: “No tax on tips” is an industry plant

#166
post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mind tipping for exceptional service, I do however have a major issue with the obligation of tipping. It really should not be on the customers to pay the employees salaries directly.

I do, it creates perverse incentives and dehumanizes people. Imagine yourself catering someone and then having them talk about how great that is and wanting to pay you for that. Not in abstract but actually, in practice. It nails down the servant role, frankly. It feels abhorrent to me, even if you get numb to it over time. From my perspective, tipping is a socially acceptable way to establish classes. Which itself i…

What's worse, it adds "emotional labor" (if I may borrow that term) to a staffer's job; while it's expected for staff to be representative of their company, it really feels like staff in tipping establishments have to put on a show and fake persona to optimize the tipping. But likewise, if you don't tip or don't do enough you (as a customer) are treated like shit.

I'm too autistic to be playing these games and figuring this shit out. I'm glad I don't live in the US.

Re: “No tax on tips” is an industry plant

#167

It’s crazy that this still happens in the US. Tipping is a thing of the past. Pay for your meal and have the restaurant pay their people for their work. End of story.

Having just come back to the States from a trip to Europe — sheesh, I hope not. The service at restaurants everywhere in Europe was at best mediocre, and typically god-awful. Incentivizing good service is good. Yes, yes, "but the price on the menu says..." Whatever. If you're in the U.S., it's normalized that the price you actually pay is 20% higher, assuming they treat you well. Restaurants don't typically print the…

Not my experience.

I've got great and shit service in Europe.

I've got great and shit service in the US.

Tip/no-tip hasn't been a factor.

Re: “No tax on tips” is an industry plant

#168

It’s crazy that this still happens in the US. Tipping is a thing of the past. Pay for your meal and have the restaurant pay their people for their work. End of story.

Tipping is a thing in Eastern (to be more accurate: Central) Europe too, but where I live, tipping is not taxed. Actually, let me be more accurate: people who pay with credit card always tip in cash, as there is no way to tip with a credit card[1]. :P If you buy anything with a credit card, the total amount must always be identical to the sum of the prices of the products, it can never be more, so cannot include tips…

"Cash is untaxed" is a universal rule; there's a food stall that only sells deep fried Vietnamese eggrolls (and has for decades), they prefer cash; in part because cash is untaxed and they may forget to document every sale on occasion, but also because they do relatively low amount transactions (It's also why "knowing a guy" can be useful, tradesmen coming in on their off hours to do a job for cash.

Re: “No tax on tips” is an industry plant

#169

It’s crazy that this still happens in the US. Tipping is a thing of the past. Pay for your meal and have the restaurant pay their people for their work. End of story.

Having just come back to the States from a trip to Europe — sheesh, I hope not. The service at restaurants everywhere in Europe was at best mediocre, and typically god-awful. Incentivizing good service is good. Yes, yes, "but the price on the menu says..." Whatever. If you're in the U.S., it's normalized that the price you actually pay is 20% higher, assuming they treat you well. Restaurants don't typically print the…

On the other hand, when I visited US on a work trip we've had an absolutely awful service at a restaurant, like the waiter was genuienly rude to us, and at the end I said ok, well, this was awful, I guess we're not leaving a tip then - and our American host laughed and said no, you still have to leave a tip. Why? Because it would be rude not to. And these people earn very little so you have to leave a tip. But.....the service was bad? Why would we tip? "because you have to".

That's nonsense. In the UK if the service is good I leave a tip. If it isn't then I don't. From my (limited) experience in the US it looks like you have to tip regardless. If that's the tipping culture then that culture is rotten.

>>The service is so, so much better in the U.S. because of tipping.

Honest question - do you consider waiters who ask you if you need anything every 2 minutes "good"?

>> The service at restaurants everywhere in Europe was at best mediocre

What's your opinion on restaurants in Poland? Was the service better or worse than in Spain? How was it compared to Czechia and Slovakia?

Re: “No tax on tips” is an industry plant

#170

It’s crazy that this still happens in the US. Tipping is a thing of the past. Pay for your meal and have the restaurant pay their people for their work. End of story.

Having just come back to the States from a trip to Europe — sheesh, I hope not. The service at restaurants everywhere in Europe was at best mediocre, and typically god-awful. Incentivizing good service is good. Yes, yes, "but the price on the menu says..." Whatever. If you're in the U.S., it's normalized that the price you actually pay is 20% higher, assuming they treat you well. Restaurants don't typically print the…

Having been to Europe multiple times, hard disagree. I don't know why you had bad experiences everywhere, but I have hardly had any.
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