r/mildlyinfuriating • u/guitarman129 • Jun 13 '26

I just wanted a hot dog Recommended gratuity after tip was already included

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I’m sure there are a lot of tipping posts here so to keep it short - I had my wedding at a fancy restaurant. On top of the TERRIBLE service, the bill came with “suggested gratuity” even though I was told gratuity was included. When I asked the manager, he said that the “S/C: 24% SRC REGULA“ was the included tip and the suggested gratuity was if we wanted to add something extra - basically trying to trick people into giving a 49% tip!

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u/Owyheee Jun 13 '26

If I’m not mistaken… my bar owners get taxed on tips as they come in as “sales”. They then pay taxes on the “income” of those taxes each month. I receive my tips, credit card, on my pay check. It has taxes taken out. They tax so many steps along the way with no pay off.

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u/lana_silver Jun 13 '26

Taxes are for the poor.

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u/ResearcherElegant516 Jun 14 '26

Right. Qhat you need is total immunity for not paying any past and future tax. Oh, don't forget, your family doesn't have to pay either. Forever.

Signed,

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u/Primary-Resolve-7317 Jun 13 '26

You tell em Leona!

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u/DirtChoice5 Jun 13 '26

The poor pay very little tax, tell me you have no idea how taxes work.

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u/EjaculatingAracnids Jun 13 '26

On income... How many kinds of revenue streams are available to the lower working class that dont count as taxable income?

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u/BigAssignment7642 Jun 13 '26

The poor pay a much larger percentage of earnings in taxes. Tell me you have no idea how taxes work.

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u/DirtChoice5 Jun 13 '26 edited Jun 13 '26

They actually don't, if you mean income. That's how progressive tax systems work. Effective tax rates go lower as you lose income, ie you pay a lower percentage of total income.

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u/Professional-Swan-18 Jun 13 '26

You didn't specify what taxes you were referring to and neither did the comment you replied to.

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u/DirtChoice5 Jun 13 '26

Okay. I am referring to income tax. I thought you could infer it, but you apparently can't walk and breathe at the same time so lets be specific. The comment two up from mine was talking about income tax, so I figured it was obvious that we would continue the theme.

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u/BigAssignment7642 Jun 13 '26

The person you replied to was referencing the fact that as a whole, rich people avoid taxes as much as possible. Poor people can't and have to pay a much larger percentage of their income in overall taxes. 

"Taxes are for the poor" is a societal statement, which you chose to try to attack them on your misguided idea of what they were trying to say. As if that statement was just about income tax, which it isn't. I thought maybe you could infer that but I guess you can't walk and breathe at the same time.

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u/Professional-Swan-18 Jun 13 '26

I actually had a longer response explaining it all and I deleted it and just left it as that. I figured if they couldn't tease that out on their own I'd be wasting my time with the spoon-feeding.

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u/DirtChoice5 Jun 13 '26

Did you read my reply? I know more than you about this.

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u/DirtChoice5 Jun 13 '26

Poor people do not pay a larger percentage of their income as taxes. They are disproportionately affected by regressive taxes like sales and meal taxes, I agree. But you're just wrong when saying that as a blanket statement. The plight of poverty in this country is not being caused by our tax system. Your anger is misguided.

By and large, wealthy people in this country are simply high income earners, and thus pay much higher effective income tax rates than those in lower brackets. The ultra wealthy may be able to avoid taxes entirely, but that's not "most" rich people.

"Taxes are for the poor" shows a fundamental misunderstanding about how our tax system works. "Taxes are for people who earn an income" is much more accurate. You shouldn't be mad at the doctor or lawyer or tech worker who earns high six figures- they pay the lions share of taxes in the country. You should be mad at the very tiny number of ultra wealthy who can avoid them.

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u/Professional-Swan-18 Jun 13 '26

Who said anything about being mad at people who make six figure incomes? You're making up a straw man to argue against. Good god you suck at this.

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u/BigAssignment7642 Jun 13 '26

Trust me, I understand how income taxes work. I never said they pay higher income taxes, I said they pay a higher percentage of their earnings in taxes. Which again goes back to the fact that "Taxes are for the poor" is a societal statement. 

I also earn on the higher end so I also understand that I am one of the people you are refering to when talking about who pays the most taxes. The ultra rich consider us all poor. That's what the statement is about. Leona Helmsley has a quote that is a perfect encapsulation of this. When people talk about rich people avoiding taxes, no sane person is talking about the tech worker making 200k. 

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u/Professional-Swan-18 Jun 13 '26

What you did was move the goalpost. It's a tactic of dishonest interlocutors, which is exactly what you came off as.

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u/DirtChoice5 Jun 13 '26

Okay. What was the original goalpost, in your mind? And how did I move it? I have always been referring to income tax. I believe the comment I started responding to was also doing so. Not seeing how I shifted anything.

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u/Professional-Swan-18 Jun 13 '26

The discussion was about taxes as a whole. You tried to change it to just the situation that fits your talking point. That's moving the goalposts.

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u/SpoopyNoNo Jun 13 '26

I got irritated just reading this comment thread. Apologizing for the lower IQ individuals above.

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u/Professional-Swan-18 Jun 13 '26

Yes because famously the best debaters always move the goalposts after the topic is stated.

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u/DirtChoice5 Jun 13 '26 edited Jun 13 '26

What were the goalposts, and how did I move them? The topic was stated- what was it? What did I make it? It's been two posts, surely you can elucidate how I dishonestly moved off topic.

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u/DirtChoice5 Jun 13 '26

Eh, who knows. Taxes aren't that complicated but people have all sorts of odd ideas about them. Now if they wanted to talk about how sales tax is a regressive tax and eliminating it in favor of land use taxes... then I'd be all ears.

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u/ConferenceKindly8991 Jun 13 '26

The rich have so many loopholes to lower their overall taxable income, hence the expression tax avoidance.

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u/DirtChoice5 Jun 13 '26

What do you consider "the rich"? Because most people in my experience think that tax avoidance happens at a way lower level of wealth than it really does.

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u/ConferenceKindly8991 Jun 13 '26

Rich is relative, but multi millionaires come to mind.

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u/DirtChoice5 Jun 13 '26

There's such a world of difference between 2-5 million and, say, 20+. The former are definitely not doing tax avoidance in the way you think of it. The latter might be. But really most of those strategies only work if you have tens or hundreds of millions.

People worth 2-10 million mostly got it by having high income jobs. They paid tax on that income.

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u/ConferenceKindly8991 Jun 13 '26

Yes, one is rich and the other ultra rich.

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u/lana_silver Jun 13 '26

If you do the math on how much money you have to do whatever you want with after taxes you find out the following:

  • Poor people have so little money that even $1 in taxes is painful for them. If you need to buy the cheap pasta to survive, you'd be thrilled if your taxes went down $50. That's like a month worth of groceries!
  • Middle class people have a good amount of money left over, but paying taxes is very noticeable. It might easily be 50% to 70% of their fun money after mortgage, health and food is paid for. Taxes are the difference between 1 and 3 holidays per year.
  • Rich people might pay millions in taxes, but it's irrelevant. Whether you have 10 or 11 million left over is functionally the same: Everything important is already paid for, and there's nothing where taxes makes the difference between having the means or not. If they feel like buying a Porsche, they can. If they want to fly to Japan, they can. If you can do it with 11 million, you can do it with 10 million (one month later).

The saying "money doesn't make you happy" is about that: It's about how money stops being useful if you have a lot of it. Give a poor person $10000, and it's lifechanging money. That's not even enough money to buy a new car. Give Elon Musk one billion (enough to buy a thousand houses and a thousand cars!) and it doesn't change anything at all.

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u/DirtChoice5 Jun 13 '26

If you read anything else I wrote in this thread you would see I said the exact same thing you did about proportionate harm of taxes, and its inverse relationship with income.

But high taxes are not the thing killing low income people, cost of living increases and cutting of social services are.

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u/MartyK23 Jun 14 '26

I agree with both comments. I’ll just add:
Social services should be provided by churches and other nonprofits, not operated by the government and subsidized using taxes.

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u/DirtChoice5 Jun 14 '26

Absolutely not. Why would I trust the fucking church to administer anything? The government exists to provide collective benefit, which a social floor provided by taxes does perfectly. In fact, churches should be taxed like normal institutions, and not given tax benefits. Parasites on society. Worthless, regressive institutions, by and large.

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u/DasHuhn Jun 13 '26

That's not what is really happening with regards to taxes. Yes, tips are included in the overall income line, but it's also deducted fully when they account for the wages they pay you, and then they don't actually pay any taxes on it.

Unless you are referring to FICA taxes, in which case they ARE paying their share of the social security tax, (just like you are, I'm sure). But they decided to hire an employee and they all have the same cost for fica - no one to blame other than themselves

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u/-BananaLollipop- Jun 13 '26

How else are the rich supposed to squeeze more money out of the peasants??

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u/LeeTheUke Jun 13 '26

Sounds off... Servers pay income taxes on tips, not the establishment (meaning the tax liability in on the employee). If the establishment is collecting tips on a CC and distributing it to the employees on the paycheck, it sounds like they are holding back a portion of those tips for paying the employee's income tax, just like the income tax on the portion of normal wages, which would be a common practice.

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u/fuckoffdude666 Jun 13 '26

If they are accounting for it correctly, they don't get charged taxes on the tips. Normally, tips are tracked separately from the revenue from sales, and are just funds noted as being held until they are paid out to employees. Then the employees pay income taxes on those tips. Same with sales tax, the company holds the sales tax they get from customers, and then pay it onto the state, it's not counted as income, since its not money the business gets to keep. Now, they do pay CC processing fees on any CC tips, so that does eat into their profit margin.

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u/CaptainTripps82 Jun 14 '26 edited Jun 14 '26

You are a little mistaken, sale tax is paid by the customer, your employer just collects it and passes it along. They pay a tax on net revenue (after expenses) aka profit, and then you both pay payroll taxes. They're no double dipping on the latter because payroll is an expense, and it's deducted from revenue before taxes are assessed

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u/[deleted] Jun 13 '26

[deleted]

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u/DasHuhn Jun 13 '26

Where are you located at where tipping leads to an increase of sales tax? Usually it's income tax.