Hi, before I start, keep in mind that I know little to nothing about tax or labor laws. Anyway, I work at a small, one screen independent movie theater/bar in Columbus Ohio, and I have a tip question. One or two days a week, the owners of the business work behind the counter serving drinks to avoid having to pay an extra person those hours. As bad as that sounds, it's actually a beneficial situation,because the owners will usually work with one or two regular employees, and initially, at the end of the night, it was always an informal rule that the owner did not take tips and the entire jar would be split up between the employees working. Now, we have new owners, and they've decided that whenever they work (as a measure of cutting hours for regular employees) they are also entitled to an equal share of the cash and credit card tips. There's a rumor that one of the employees has actually found the line in the tax code that says "employers are not allowed to take tips" but nothing has come of it, so I thought I would ask you.

Best I could find was this.
http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/compliance/whd/whdfs15.htm

Even if it isn't strictly a violation of the law, it's certainly tacky, in my humble opinion. :(