I would advise against doing this. This makes it easy for a sleazy person to just write in it for you and tip themselves whatever they want. At my work, we are instructed to ask customers to at least write in the total if they leave it blank, simply for their protection.

Yeah, it's definitely lazy and I open myself up to getting scammed, but most likely only for a few bucks. I generally watch my statements and would notice it and if I do get scammed, avoid the place in general. I don't do it often and usually just pay cash in these situations.

Your credit card company might call to verify in a case like this though.

solid pun

I think the reason people dont bitch about having to tip in America is that opening a restaurant is pretty much the most high variance business endeavor. Very few would survive if they had to pay their wait staff a decent wage. It also promotes customer service which helps the bottom line.

When I go to a restaurant, I already know that the real price of any meal is going to be the price of the meal plus the price of the tip. A meal that costs $10 really costs $12 (since I'm tipping 20% or so, maybe slightly less). If I can't afford a $12 meal, I won't eat there.

In a world without tips, the restaurant owner would raise the prices so the meal costs $12 and pay the waitstaff more to compensate for what they would otherwise have made in tips. And again, if I can't afford the $12 meal I can't eat there. So the restaurant would still be getting roughly the same amount of business, the waitstaff gets roughly the same pay, the customers pay roughly the same amount. I don't see how it makes things any better or worse for the restaurant owner.

It might promote customer service if the tips were conditional on good service, but generally they aren't. Tips are almost mandatory (ie repeat customers who don't tip are going to hear about it, get crappy service, etc). Customers will pretty much respond to a $10 meal + 20% tipping situation the same way they would to a $12 meal + no tip expected situation.

Having a higher fixed hourly rate is an expense owner incurs regardless if anyone eats there or not. That greatly increases the risk to the owner.

You are missing the point that the person who owns the restaurant may not have customers paying the higher prices initially (or at any point), which drives his fixed costs up. Having the wait staff get their income from tips shifts things more toward variable costs, where the more business they get, the more they can pay their staff (through tips).

I hadn't thought of that, seems to make some sense. So would both of you say the tipping culture we have is a net positive for all concerned (at least as it applies to the restaurant business), as opposed to a culture where nobody tips? Or are there other factors that make this not the case?

You get better service so better for the customer.

Generous tippers can tip even more and get even better service so good for people who want that.

Cheap people get pissed off and that is a social good.

Staff have a portion of their pay be merit based which is motivating. They also get to avoid paying income tax on some of their income making a job that doesn't pay very well for the work involved a little more profitable.

Restaurant owners get lower fixed costs.

So yes everyone is better off.

That would be outstanding (from a small government perspective), if it was true. But at least in the US, waitresses are required to declare their tips as taxable income. Now they can get away with under-reporting tips as long as they keep it within reason (which I think is what usually happens), so the effect still exists somewhat. But the IRS takes a cut.

Yes but even getting 20-40% of tips as tax free is better than nothing. CRA is staffed with lazy ******s so I think you could likely even go for 50-70% in Canada without much fear of getting caught.

Cool, this has changed my stance on tipping at least somewhat. I mean I tip anyway because it's expected, but I always thought it was a stupid custom and now I see it has some merits.

I'm not in here to argue, I just stated my opinion. We all know Henry doesn't back down so I'm not about to waste my time argueing with him. I'm content to agree to disagree.

In Canada, service industry workers generally follow a general rule of thumb of declaring an additional 10% of their annual wages as tips on their tax returns. This is so that all service workers have returns that are relatively consistent with each other so as to not raise a lot of red flags. At least this is what I've been told by all other workers at my jobs near tax time.

My tips have typically made up anywhere from 50% to 70% of my total income, though I tend to try and work in places where I would make a lot of tips. I have not heard of any restaurant worker being audited before, and I'm not sure what would happen in that case.

There has been some years back but they all worked at expense account venues in the financial district. What happens is that CRA assigns you a new income and taxes you on that. The onus is then on you prove that their estimate is wrong. Their estimate is always wrong and always a lot more than you actually failed to declare. This happens so infrequently though that it isn't even worth thinking about.

Yeah, my haircuts are also 14$, and I use it as an opportunity to acquire one dollar bills. I either ask for two back, one back, or nothing back depending on the state of the universe.

When I was little 10-15% was considered a good tip, nowadays it's 15-20%.

Not sure why it changed.

Yeah tipping in a restaurant is standard, but bars is pretty unusual, there's only a few places I'd tips for drinks in. I remember recently putting in a ridic order in a nightclub and just saying to keep the change and the girl look flabbergasted. I guess if most people my age are super juiced up pre drinking and trying to sneak stuff in they're unlikely to be the type to tip!

I admittedly don't so I have no idea what this means

There's no need to tip a barman in ireland when he's earning $20 an hour already.

I also go on record to say that tipping based purely on % and not on absolute dollar amount is a huge scam IMO.

I go to alot of cheapo place for lunch where the bill is 5-8 dollars and routinely leave 20-25%+ tips in these situations.

I've also been to very nice meals where the bill is like $250 and I have no problem whatsoever with leaving a $25 tip in that situation even though it's "only" 10%

In both cases the waiter is making the same reduced minimum wage probably and judging the tip based purely on % is ridiculous.

Would you rather wait tables all night and get a bunch of 10% $25 tips or a bunch of 25% $2 tips?

Money is money, this % nonsense is just a rough estimate and doesn't scale linerally in all situations IMO.

That completely ignores the difference in service required for different levels of dinning.

It also ignores how much of a schmuck someone would be for leaving $20 on a $400 tab. The argument is that if you can afford to pay extra for consumption you can afford to tip more as well otherwise stay home.

Waiters at places that will cost you $250 are generally going to be much better than the ones at crappy places. Plus you stay at the tables longer, they have fewer tables to wait, etc...

You are a cheap bastard.

However, I will tip more at diner-like places where things are cheap. I tip $2/head minimum at those places typically for good service.

Why such moral outrage and self righteousness over how someone else decides to spend or not spend their money?