I just posted a question about breaks, but I also have a question about claiming tips in the restuarant industry. As a server I am required to claim every penny I earn. The restuarant I am working for has the wierdest tip claiming system I have ever seen. Follow along as much as you can cause this is confusing.
So I make $200 in sales, the tips that are reported on credit cards is $10. My cash tips are $5. I have altogether made $15. It was a bad day for me. This store MAKES us tip out 3% of our sales. This means $6 goes to my bartender/host/expo. I am at $9. I am going to walk out the store with only $9. This is not even 8%. I have lost money by tipping out. This is hardly the problem. The problem is this: Before i can go, the computer makes me claim all my tips. If I put in $9...what I made and what I am going home with, the computer will not allow me to leave. It makes me claim $20. This is 10% of my sales. So here I just lost $11. This money I am being taxed on. Not even jsut me. The people who are recieving part of my tip out also have to claim the same dollar. So uncle sam is making more money from my same dollar by taxing all four of us on it. Does this make sense? If it does is it leagal to make me claim money that I am not getting at the end of the day? Please help me. I have no idea about laws on tips. :confused:

Where do you work that you only make $15 when your sales were $200? That's not even 8%. What I've heard, and this is strictly hearsay, is that the law technically requires you to claim 8% of your sales, and the idea is that if you were acually making less then that than that you must be a really lousy server. Or else you just need to get a job at a better restaraunt, because 8% is beyond an insult, it's reason to be asked to leave.

Your employer cannot require you to claim more tips than you leave the building with. The amount you have when you are done tipping out everyone else is what you should claim. The exact scenario you described is hopefully just a one time thing, numbers wise. In these hopefully rare instances, the management, or corporate should be able to use a password or code to override the system. Agreed though, that if you start out with 15$ on $200 in sales, you either work in a place that, well, sucks, or perhaps you should look into another field of work.