Good for you. And remember, charity begins at home. That way you can continue to afford to shop at Pubelicks and tip your waiter/waitress for fulfilling their job requirements.

I wonder if your tipping practices follow your comments on tipping and are reflected in the way you are treated by the servers who recognize you.

We generally get great service - there just might be a correlation.

And you would be correct. Have a chocolate cigar.
A tip is what you get at the race track.
A gratuity is what you give someone who has gone out of their way to make your experience exceptionally memorable ... in a good way, that is. Calling me Hon (hun?) and telling me to have a blest day hardly counts as making my experience "exceptionally memorable" in a good way.

Wonder no more. I am treated as well as most folks. We only frequent a couple of places often enough to be of notice. We usually tip at 20%, as that seems to be the standard (as far as we can tell).
I, we, follow local custom wherever we are. Here, people tip, so we do as well. But just because we follow custom doesn't mean we agree with it. I don't say "grace" before I eat, but if I'm with someone who does, I respect their feelings. Just because I tip doesn't mean I agree with the practice. I believe tipping allows restaurants to report lower taxable bottom line per the "out-the-door" expense per customer. When two clients orders require the same amount of work expense (number of dishes, silverware, glasses and effort for the server) and the only difference is the chopped steak vs filet mignon, coke vs cocktail, green beans vs roasted asparagus, fries vs baked potatoes, ice cream vs tiramisou. One meal twice the cost of the other, but no difference in worker effort. Tip, imho, should be the same for both. Equal pay for equal work. Do you disagree?

Jeez I think y'all need to stop posting until you start reading. The new bill doesn't have "no tax on tips." That is propaganda, it's not true, it's not in the bill. If you'd actually read the bill you'd know that.

It's a tax DEDUCTION - not a tax-free income. You get to deduct $25,000 from your tipped wages at the end of the year. If you were tipped well all year long, at a fancy restaurant where the average tip was $50, and you had 10 tables per night (that's $500 just in tips), and you worked 5 nights a week (that's $2500 per week) then your yearly TIPPED wage will be $130,000 just in tips alone. You can deduct $25,000 from that, and you pay income tax on the balance.

Back in the day, my grandmother used to tip $2 for a table of 2 adults, 2 children. Fifty cents tip per person. No matter what she ordered, or how expensive the tab was. Now, this was back in the 1960's-1980's, when the highest minimum wage was $3.80/hour. So an extra $2 for a table of 4 taking up space for just 45 minutes was actually not bad at all. Especially if you had more than one table to serve during that hour. In 1960, $2 was actually a lot of money. Minimum wage was just $1/hour. She said the waitress was either worth it, or not worth it. So if she didn't tip at all, it was because the waitress did something wrong. If the waitress got a tip, it was because she did her job.

Please explain the difference between “tax free” and “DEDUCTION” and subtracting $25,000 before calculating taxes. If I subtract that amount as a deduction before calculating taxes then it really feels like I made that income tax free.

Yes, it is only $25,000 but it is a deduction that most of us won’t get.

Yes(2), it is a deduction from Federal income tax but is still subject to other withholding taxes and probably state income tax. But again, it’s something.

We had lunch at Amerikanos today. My husband (former labor relations, interested in this) said to the waitress, "None of my business, but can I ask you if you'd rather have minimum wage or tips?" Her answer: Tips! She said she makes $9.98/hour (state law), and during the season does fantastically thanks to tips. Not as good off season, but overall more than just minimum wage.
That's one person's answer...

No income tax on overtime is very fair to regular hourly and salary workers. Salary workers can negotiate their terms and value to the company. Few people absolutely love overtime and avoid it at all costs. Mandatory overtime is an onerus to many. Some workers need the overtime to make the ends meet in the middle even though they would rather not be doing it. Try standing in a factory which runs about 100 degrees on a summer day, lifting product, running presses and tell me how you would enjoy mandatory overtime. Those are people from the working crowd so you can enjoy your retirement.

AI: Overtime work, while offering potential financial gains, can lead to several drawbacks, including decreased productivity, increased health risks, and a strained work-life balance. Excessive overtime can lead to burnout, impacting both physical and mental health.

I was a salaried worker. I never negotiated the terms of my employment and to my knowledge, no one at my level did. I think senior vice presidents and above did that.

And I worked overtime most weeks - I just didn’t get paid for it.

There's no state income tax in Florida, so that doesn't apply here (though yes, it does apply in states with state income tax).

If you earn more than $25,000 in tips in a year, you have to pay federal income tax on everything above the first $25,000. That means - it isn't "no tax on tips." It's "tax on all tips beyond the first $25,000."

Math: $24.04 per hour is what you'd earn, just in tips, to earn $25,000 in tips in a year if you work 20 hours per week at your tip-paying job.

If you work the dinner shift at the FMK restaurants or places like Legacy Lopez CC, you'll be serving more than two tables per hour, and you'll likely be averaging more than $24.04 per hour in tips as a result. Add all those hourly tips up and at the end of the year, you will have earned more than the deduction you're allowed to take, and pay federal income tax on the balance. PLUS you still pay federal income tax on your hourly wages.

No surprise here. My focus is not on the waitstaff. It's the customer position.
The customer pays a price, part of which goes to cover employee pay. So, waiter gets a cut. Tax is added. The comes the tip. Now the wait person has an opportunity to dramatically increase their "cut" through sweet talking, cajoling, persuasion, etc. Pitty the poor server. A good actor can make a lot more than a bad actor. If it wasn't for tipping, restaurants would be paying more tax. Servers would be tax liable for all their income. Customers wouldn't have to figure the appropriate cost of being called "Hon". He/she ain't your friend. It's about getting the biggest present they can from you. It's a con, a game, a scam, that we all play. But it isn't an honest hourly wage for labor. Restaurant owners are complicit in this for their own reasons.
Tonight's nice dinner out and the waitress pocketed $20+, on top of her regular pay, for the 10 minutes that she spent on us.

So which are the deserving category of workers that should get a tax break and which are the ones that don’t deserve the tax break?

If the concern is that the workers should be paid minimum wage, if workers aren’t tipped, the employer is required to pay minimum wage.

I believe that California requires that employers pay the full minimum wage regardless of tips. So if a waiter is making $25 an hour in tips, they still get the minimum wage of $16.50 an hour.

If you go to California do you tip less?

Why aren't all "employees" getting paid in full by their [/B]employers[/B]. Why are we giving extra money to people who have a job and an income. Where is the employee loyalty if the customer pays a greater portion of the employees income. Earlier I said our waitress this evening at a local Villages restaurant, got a $20 for our meal, and about the same from other couple at our table. She had 5 tables I could see. Three tables of 4 and two tables of 6. $40 from our table and, presumably, the same from the other 4 tables. That could reasonably be $200 p/h. $200 per hour? In TIPS! If the waitress isn't getting every dollar we gave to her, who is?

You can spend a lot of space working math problems but that doesn’t change the fact that this deduction, only available to some tipped workers, will exempt the first $25,000 in tips from federal income tax.