[Bobcuse]

Originally Posted by mac9

Having worked as a server while in school, I am sympathetic to the crap salaries that they receive. When I receive good service, I always tip 25 - 30%, but I never put it all on my credit card. I will put a few dollars as the tip on my card and leave the rest in cash. I have been thanked by many servers!

I must be naive about leaving tips on my credit card. I always try to be generous with tipping good servers but never thought about the tax implications for them as I didn't know anything about how tips are reported as income. In reading another post somewhere here, I thought it implied that the total food bill is assigned to a server and the IRS assumes that 18% of the bill should be tip income for that server? Can someone clarify please....is a cash tip more beneficial for a server, and do these servers at Carrabbas, Outback, et al share their tips? Thanks for the info.

[2BNTV]

Originally Posted by Bill32

I agree and always tip well but that should not take the responsibility away from the employer to care for their workers. We are indirectly subsidizing their payroll now!

I agree but waiters and waitresses have to live and most employers are not doing what's right by them. I also agree this bill must be defeated. This puts an undue burden on the workers.

It is what it is for the time being until the relationship between employer and employee changes for the better.

IMHO - I don't see the restaurant industry changing in the near future.

[memason]

From everything I have read about this bill and the details that were posted by ilovetv, which came directly from the bill language, it seems to me that this bill actually has a positive impact on servers. They will be guaranteed a minimum wage of $7.67/hr....

I am not able to find a single link that substantiates the claims made by the OP or that the restaurant association is behind this bill.

Bill32....perhaps you can provide some links that substantiate your claims.

Sorry...I just don't get it...

[redwitch]

Originally Posted by Bobcuse

I must be naive about leaving tips on my credit card. I always try to be generous with tipping good servers but never thought about the tax implications for them as I didn't know anything about how tips are reported as income. In reading another post somewhere here, I thought it implied that the total food bill is assigned to a server and the IRS assumes that 18% of the bill should be tip income for that server? Can someone clarify please....is a cash tip more beneficial for a server, and do these servers at Carrabbas, Outback, et al share their tips? Thanks for the info.

If you can avoid it, do not leave the tip on the credit card -- pay it in cash. You may tip 20% but many tip 10% (some even less or nothing regardless of how good the service). The IRS is going to deduct a minimum of 18% of the bill, so, yes, paying in cash does help the server -- the IRS can't claim the server is making more than 18% . So far as I know, the larger chains don't pool their tips but many small restaurants do. Also, some restaurants (including some of the chains) immediately take 10% of either the tip or the bill (whichever is larger) for tipouts.

BTW -- My comment on $7.67 was using the factors that were given to "insure" the worker got the minimum wage. If only it was true!

[Bill32]

A typical shift is 5 to 6 hours, at $7.67/ hr = 42.18 per shift, per 5 day's = $210.92/ wk. before taxes. Now take out food, clothing, housing, health care,etc and tell me how that would work for you? Most tip workers make ends meet by doing double shifts and no days off. Also now at this time of year their take home is more than the minimum wage. Average this for the year and they are able to stay off the welfare roll's. We are talking about grownups living on their own having much the same costs as we do.

OSI Partners out of Tampa pushed for this legislation and don't for a minute think they had the best interest of their workers in mind.

[memason]

Originally Posted by Bill32

A typical shift is 5 to 6 hours, at $7.67/ hr = 42.18 per shift, per 5 day's = $210.92/ wk. before taxes. Now take out food, clothing, housing, health care,etc and tell me how that would work for you? Most tip workers make ends meet by doing double shifts and no days off. Also now at this time of year their take home is more than the minimum wage. Average this for the year and they are able to stay off the welfare roll's. We are talking about grownups living on their own having much the same costs as we do.

OSI Partners out of Tampa pushed for this legislation and don't for a minute think they had the best interest of their workers in mind.

We can all do simple math.... Everyone working for minimum wage is in this same position...just the way it is.

Where's you PROOF that OSI Partners or any other association pushed this legislation? As I read the bill, it seems to be an improvement. Where is it not? They are not being paid $2.13/hr as previously claimed.

I just want to see the facts!

[Graytop]

Originally Posted by Bill32

A typical shift is 5 to 6 hours, at $7.67/ hr = 42.18 per shift, per 5 day's = $210.92/ wk. before taxes. Now take out food, clothing, housing, health care,etc and tell me how that would work for you? Most tip workers make ends meet by doing double shifts and no days off. Also now at this time of year their take home is more than the minimum wage. Average this for the year and they are able to stay off the welfare roll's. We are talking about grownups living on their own having much the same costs as we do.

OSI Partners out of Tampa pushed for this legislation and don't for a minute think they had the best interest of their workers in mind.

We live in America,...if these workers don't like their wage or anything else about their employment, no one is forcing them to stay there. People work where they work because they've made a decision. Do we really need to reduce them to "victim" status?

Why would you want to badmouth a company that's providing thousands of jobs to people,...perhaps you'd be happier if they didn't exist? ...You're living in a dream world if you think that restaurant jobs are ever going to pay a lot. It's just the way it is...I would guess that most servers understand going in that their "bread & butter" is in the tips, not what the restaurant pays them.

Go start your own restaurant and pay your workers whatever you want.

[ilovetv]

Originally Posted by Bill32

ilovtv, read between the lines.........if the restaurant association wants this bill sponsored it is not intended to benefit the servers it is to benefit them! This wasn't introduced by the workers! You would have to be a lawyer to decipher the laws they write in congress, keep it simple, if the Restaurants want this it's for their benefit only.

This language in the text of the bill is not difficult to understand:

27 employer may elect to guarantee that all such employees receive
28 a wage, including tips, equal to at least 130 percent of the
29 state minimum wage ($7.67 per hour) established pursuant to s. 448.110, Florida
30 Statutes, rounded up to the next cent.

So, this added, optional method of calculating the guaranteed tipped worker pay is 130% of $7.67, or $9.91 per hour including tips earned and any difference the employer would have to fill in if tips were insufficient to bring it up to the 130% of minimum.

A sample letter below by the Florida Restaurant & Lodging Association explains that they back this proposed option as "a guarantee of higher, stable wages to many of our tipped workforce" that suffers with seasonal fluctuations, time of day, and the economy.

Everyone here knows that restaurant business gets slower and tip opportunities become less in the summer, and because of time of day, and because of consumers' belt tightening.

It's apparent that the bill is to guarantee a stable wage for servers who work in places where business fluctuates a lot, like at country clubs up north where lengthy periods of rain and mud can absolutely kill golf and the club restaurant business for weeks.

Full-time tipped workers cannot rely on tips in fluctuating situations like this and so some clubs pay an hourly wage higher than regular minimum wage, to lend income stability for slow weeks/seasons. Here in FL, we have obviously "high and low" seasons.

A FL example of why the bill is to guarantee higher pay is this: A few years ago, we went to an Outback a few miles from DisneyWorld in a residential area where friends rented a Disney vacation home. When we got our bill and were calculating our tip, the server told us "we get regular minimum wage, not the lower tipped minimum wage, because it's hard to attract good servers with the way Disney pays them so much more per hour". He told us that in order to compete with Disney pay for servers, Outback was paying them more per hour. He also mentioned the difficulty with seasonal fluctuations in business/tips.

According to the Bill Analysis I posted earlier from the state legislative site (not political blogs and Huffington Post) it says clearly that tip money is to be claimed to fill in the difference from $2.13/hour and regular state minimum wage, and "IF an employee’s tips combined with the employer’s direct (or cash) wages of at least $2.13 per hour do not equal the minimum hourly wage of (federal) $7.25 per hour, the employer must make up the difference.......

So in other words, if a server's tips do not fill in the difference between $2.13 and FL minimum wage of $7.67, the employer has to fill that in and bring it up to 130% of minimum, under this new wage calculation option the bill provides. This is a decent wage a server can count on every day he/she works, regardless of whether business is slow or nonexistent because of season or bad weather.

See this sample letter explaining the position of the Florida Restaurant & Lodging Association....

Tipped Employee Sample Letter - Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association

[blueash]

You are a server at Bonefish. Under the law now you are paid $4.65 from your employer and whatever you get in tips. The government assumes you get the $3.02 in tips to bring you up to 7.65. (Note that if you do not get $3.02/hr in tips I believe there is an obligation for the employer to pay you more to make up the difference.. whether the employer really does that, I don't know.). But you work at Bonefish so in fact you average $10.00/hr in tips making your total hourly income $14.65. Under the proposal you still will get $10/hr in tips but the employer will only pay you $2.13 so your income drops to $12.13. Now the restaurant has cut their employee cost in half!
If on a really slow night you only make $4.00/hr in tips then your total for that night is only 6.13/hr and the employer must make up the difference to $9.91. If you almost always can get away with paying 2.13/hr which saves you 2.52/hr and rarely have to cover shortages then you make a lot more money. If on the other hand you own a waffle house, then you stay with 4.65/hr so you aren't at risk for the higher make-up cost. The irony here is the expensive diner owner ends up paying less than half to hire a server (2.13/hr) compared to the owner of the Waffle House ( 4.65/hr).
IMHO we ought to encourage a system where all employers should pay a living wage and not make the customers' tips the essential component of income. For those who travel, you recognize that in Europe tipping is only loose change. In that way if you were a server at a more expensive restaurant the ownership would pay you more in salary to get a better quality employee, just like any other business. And that extra cost for a higher paid server would be passed on to the patron as a higher price meal. But you see, you're already paying the higher price because you add the tip to the meal charge. Raise the meal charge 18% and give it all to the wait staff. Stop encouraging servers to lie on their taxes.

[blueash]

Originally Posted by ilovetv

A sample letter below by the Florida Restaurant & Lodging Association explains that they back this proposed option as "a guarantee of higher, stable wages to many of our tipped workforce" that suffers with seasonal fluctuations, time of day, and the economy.

See this sample letter explaining the position of the Florida Restaurant & Lodging Association....

Tipped Employee Sample Letter - Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association

The letter is VERY revealing as it is a fill in the blank and sent to your representative/senator form. It begins "I am a small restaurant owner". Really? No large restaurant owners in this organization?? Well the FRLA is according to its website a legislative lobbying interest whose goals are to save the owners of these businesses $$ in taxes and fees. No where on the website is there ever a single mention of representing the workers in these industries or trying to be sure they make more money.

"The mission of FRLA is to Protect, Educate, and Promote the hospitality industry. The power and influence of FRLA is indisputable with a legislative track record to back it up. Led by CEO Carol Dover and an active Board of Directors, FRLA has been effective in influencing legislation that has saved the industry $1.2 billion in taxes and fees over the past 10 years. The association is committed to safe-guarding the needs of the hospitality industry and improving the business climate."

So please no more arguments about how they are just doing it to try to make the servers get a slightly better wage. How Orwellian.. lower your wages to raise your income.

[ilovetv]

Originally Posted by blueash

The letter is VERY revealing as it is a fill in the blank and sent to your representative/senator form. It begins "I am a small restaurant owner". Really? No large restaurant owners in this organization?? Well the FRLA is according to its website a legislative lobbying interest whose goals are to save the owners of these businesses $$ in taxes and fees. No where on the website is there ever a single mention of representing the workers in these industries or trying to be sure they make more money.

"The mission of FRLA is to Protect, Educate, and Promote the hospitality industry. The power and influence of FRLA is indisputable with a legislative track record to back it up. Led by CEO Carol Dover and an active Board of Directors, FRLA has been effective in influencing legislation that has saved the industry $1.2 billion in taxes and fees over the past 10 years. The association is committed to safe-guarding the needs of the hospitality industry and improving the business climate."

So please no more arguments about how they are just doing it to try to make the servers get a slightly better wage. How Orwellian.. lower your wages to raise your income.

It's not mainly to get the servers a "slightly better wage". It's mainly to assure workers that on days/weeks/seasons when business is slow or nothing, they can count on a guaranteed 130% of the state minimum wage, including their tips filling in the gap between $2.13 and minimum.

And if they did not earn that much in tips, the employer has to fill in the gap up to the 130% of state minimum, in the new optional calculation that is tied to the federal and IRS requirements.

I know servers who sometimes work a slow afternoon shift and they might make only $5 in tips because there were no customers. So they got a dollar an hour in tips, and their "tipped minimum wage" of $4.67. Basically they got enough to buy gas to get there and back and buy a box of cereal and gallon of milk on the way home.

The new optional calculation gives workers a minimum earnings they can count on if few or no customers come in.

[Here2Stay]

Shameful for sure. Best way to address the issue and make a statement to these restuarants.....don't support any of them! When their sales drop, maybe the message will be heard loud and clear!

[redwitch]

Originally Posted by Graytop

We live in America,...if these workers don't like their wage or anything else about their employment, no one is forcing them to stay there. People work where they work because they've made a decision. Do we really need to reduce them to "victim" status?

Why would you want to badmouth a company that's providing thousands of jobs to people,...perhaps you'd be happier if they didn't exist? ...You're living in a dream world if you think that restaurant jobs are ever going to pay a lot. It's just the way it is...I would guess that most servers understand going in that their "bread & butter" is in the tips, not what the restaurant pays them.

Go start your own restaurant and pay your workers whatever you want.

Most servers work as such because they are the only jobs they can find. Few want this as a career choice. Yes, it's their fault they're unskilled and probably uneducated but that doesn't mean they should be exploited. Yes, they are well aware that they depend on tips to survive and that their employer is not going to pay them the minimum wage, let alone a living wage. However, how many jobs do you know where you have to help pay the wages of your co-workers? Most servers do and it comes out of their tips. So, even if this bill becomes law, servers still will not be making the minimum wage. Show me another industry today in the United States where it is possible to LEGALLY work for less than the minimum wage on a regular basis.

If the legislature really wants to help servers, how about making it illegal for servers to have to start early to do prep work or stay late to clean up and be off the clock for that period? How about forcing employers to pay support staff the minimum wage and not force servers to pay tip-backs? This bill serves no one but the big chains.

[Graytop]

Originally Posted by redwitch

Most servers work as such because they are the only jobs they can find. Few want this as a career choice. Yes, it's their fault they're unskilled and probably uneducated but that doesn't mean they should be exploited. Yes, they are well aware that they depend on tips to survive and that their employer is not going to pay them the minimum wage, let alone a living wage. However, how many jobs do you know where you have to help pay the wages of your co-workers? Most servers do and it comes out of their tips. So, even if this bill becomes law, servers still will not be making the minimum wage. Show me another industry today in the United States where it is possible to LEGALLY work for less than the minimum wage on a regular basis.

If the legislature really wants to help servers, how about making it illegal for servers to have to start early to do prep work or stay late to clean up and be off the clock for that period? How about forcing employers to pay support staff the minimum wage and not force servers to pay tip-backs? This bill serves no one but the big chains.

When you talk about helping to pay the wages of co-workers, are you referring to pooling tips?...If so, I agree wholeheartedly with you on that. I've always been disappointed with restaurants that do not allow their servers to keep their own tips. It takes away the incentive for personal excellence.

From a business standpoint, companies are always looking for ways to reduce expenses and they shouldn't be regarded as evil or being "the big bad wolf" for doing so. They are in business to make a profit. Some people seem to think that making a profit is wrong or evil. Any business that doesn't keep a close eye on their bottom line will not survive long,.....then no one will have a job there. And I don't see where it's a bad thing when a company is looking for ways to legally pay less taxes. They would be foolish not to, and yet some people seem to think that these companies have an inexhaustable source of money to give to the government or employees. Here is a news bulletin,....your employer is not in business to provide you a living, not primarily,.... That may be a benefit to you for working there. They are in business to make a profit for themselves. If people are too naive to understand this, then private sector business is doomed in our country.

[mulligan]

If it weren't for the large number of older (resident?) servers, who are willing to work cheaply for something to do or just play money, it would probably be worth the effort to organize a villages-wide local union, and demand a better pay system. A minimum living wage( like san francisco's at around $10), or a stop to tip sharing. Let the servers raise their standard of living.