[richlevy]

Actually, back when I was a busboy we did share a small amount of the tips of the waiters. You of course do not have to do so if you want to bus your own tables just as your customers do not have to tip you if they get their own food.

The only caveat to using a credit card is that %3-5 of the tip might be withheld by the restaurant to pay the credit card fee. This means that if you tip $10 for a $55 meal, the server might only get $9.50.

One ugly issue was what happened when a Philadelphia restaurant went bankrupt a few years ago. Tips from the last night (maybe the last few days) were not passed on to the servers they were intended for but mixed in with the restaurants assets. I tried searching the Internet for an article, but I can't remember the name of the restaurant.

According to this article, the downside of this is that the IRS assumes that all tips from the restaurant are at the same rate as that put on credit cards by customers. This means if the average credit card tip is %17.5 percent, the IRS assumes all tips are %17.5 and goes after the restaurant to have them withhold the correct amount.

Here is a discussion on tip pooling.