I usually tip by credit card to ensure it's reported to the IRS - serving is an industry that needs to stop thinking of itself as above income tax law.

Conversely, I always tip cash for the opposite reason.

I do the opposite and always leave tips in cash but not just to give a bonus to the server (if they don't declare/share it).

It also makes it so that my receipts, credit charge email alerts, and monthly bill all reconcile. Otherwise you can have a transcription error when the server or restaurant owner misreads (or mistypes) the manually written tip line of your receipt.

>It also makes it so that my receipts, credit charge email alerts, and monthly bill all reconcile. Otherwise you can have a transcription error when the server or restaurant owner misreads (or mistypes) the manually written tip line of your receipt.

To make sure it reconciles correctly, make sure you fill out the Total line legibly/correctly, not the tip line. That's generally what systems have you input at cash out, and they calculate the tip amount from that difference. The vast majority of mistypes/misreads stem from the Total field being left blank and the manager does the math on the fly, or the customer didn't do the math right when they wrote in the Total (so they end up tipping $4.50 instead of $3.50, or $1.50 instead of $2.50)[1].

[1]Restaurant manager for two years.

I do that as well. It's a belt and suspenders approach.

Also, by leaving cash there's never any math involved either as the pre-tip total is the final total.

Why? Do you think the US government mostly spends that money on good things? They mostly spend it on foreign wars and throwing it at a broken and disfunctional black hole of education, healthcare and social programs.

People actually working in restaurants have earned that money and can use it to better their lives. It's a moral crime to forcibly take the money from them.

So all taxation is immoral then?

I'm Canadian, so I could have more correctly written "CRA" instead of "IRS" - and on balance, I do believe my government spends the money on good things. Certainly there are parts I disagree with, but that's why I, you know, vote and stuff.

More importantly, I think a server who grosses $50,000 and a QA analyst who grosses $50,000 should end up paying the same amount in income taxes. The server shouldn't get a pass just because lots of his/her income comes in the form of tips.

I think taxation is legitimate when needed for protection of people's rights, which is the purpose of government. (I acknowledge that people differ in what they think rights are, but that's a different discussion.) I also think it's OK to tax to fund programs that shouldn't be funded in the long run, while you're in the process of phasing them out; I'm not for changing things drastically overnight.

That said, I think it's wrong to think that the government can invest money more wisely or efficiently than the people who have earned it can, and I think it's morally wrong to take money from people (like wait staff--note that doing this materially hurts their pursuit of their own goals and happiness) for government boondoggle.

Which is essentially his first point of inequitable distribution >> "Some servers may decide to withhold a tipout, in a sense cheating the system, and the employers is precluded from redressing this"

The article made a distinction between tip out and tip pool. Tip out was made to sound entirely voluntary, presumably on credit tips too. My post was meant to refer to an involuntary tip pool policy restaurant. The cash tip gives the waiter the ability to tip out 10% and keep the rest. Im not saying this is good practice on the waiter's part, but it is a reality.

From real world experience - the argument is just semantics, whether it's a forced tip-out or a voluntary tip-out, in practice, the result is usually the same with cash tips.