tipping with a credit card

[Brett's Honey]

QUOTE=lookout123] one thing on taxes - some places require the establishment to report X% of every order a server/bartender rings up as a received tip.

I wondered if this was going to come up. I got out of restaurant management way back in 1985, but I remember that in the early eighties there was a new law passed concerning the amount of tips that service personnel claimed as income to the IRS. I know my restaurant had to get a new cash register so we could separate dine in orders from carry out orders, and waiters and waitresses HAD to claim a percentage of the dine in sales as cash received in tips. And for the folks who did not - their W-2 form came with a dollar amount typed in the #8 box where it reads "allocated tips", that they had to pay taxes on. Anyone know if this is about how it works these days?

And as for establishments just paying their staff, well, most just don't. With minimum wage at $5.15, some steak houses around here pay $2.10 an hour plus tips, of course. Their attitude is that if you cannot average $5.15 an hour during a shift, then you're not doing your job.