A new IRS law eliminating automatic gratuity went into effect this year, and servers across the nation have dropped jaws and teary eyes.
This is yet another low-blow from the government agencies to the working class of America. I wish I could say I’m shocked.
The new law, first decided in 2012, states that any automatic gratuity added to a customer’s check won’t get pocketed by servers anymore.
Instead, the gratuity must be factored into his or her hourly wages, making it taxable. And this is only after extra paper work and tax forms for managers at the end of the day.
Needless to say, most restaurants are forbidding their employees to auto gratuity altogether. Laziness on this front will backfire, once again, on servers.
Student servers should be seeing this unfortunate regulation implemented at their respective restaurants any day now, if not already. This supplemental income could mean the difference between buying textbooks or paying utilities.
For those who don’t know, a server’s hourly wage is far less than the hourly wage of another minimum wage worker. They usually get between $2 and $5 an hour, plus tips. The United States’ law only requires $2.13 for a server’s hourly pay.
Yes, a gasp is in order.
If a server makes enough tips to break even with the minimum wage requirement of around $8, restaurants do not have to compensate employees on their paycheck.
But if not enough tips are made over that two-week period, a server’s hourly rate gets bumped up to the regular minimum wage to compensate for the lack of tips.
So basically, tips go toward helping that server make it to the minimum wage mark, and then a server can pocket whatever extra he or she makes. When you hear people say they live off tips, they aren’t joking.
Automatic gratuity was first applied to protect servers in the food industry and removing this protection has rightfully caused an uproar from these workers.
On parties of six or more, it’s only reasonable that the server require a tip. It goes beyond common courtesy and is expected in today’s society, although some people choose to ignore this fact.
Places that generate a lot of tourists will get the worst end of this deal since foreigners typically have different concepts of appropriate tips and tipping in general. Without an automatic gratuity, servers helping these groups will walk away empty-handed.
In a perfect world, relying on the goodness of other people to properly tip wouldn’t be a problem. But in the sometimes stingy cities we live in, especially Baton Rouge as a college town, that ideal is hardly a reality.
So many are people struggling in today’s economy and there is really no reason to remove the possibility of automatic gratuity. The removal is just another way for the government to take more money from paychecks.
President Barack Obama claimed to be pushing initiatives to raise minimum wages for these struggling workers, some of whom rely on their tips to help pay the rent. However, his efforts are being pushed down by the IRS now that this law is effective.
It feels like with every step forward we make, or attempt to make, the working class takes two steps backwards.
Like anything new, this will cause a few months, or maybe even a few years, of transitioning. Customers in large parties might not tip on their meals, thinking their gratuity was already included in the final check.
It may seem tedious, but every dollar matters in this industry. To the more frugal customers out there: Remember the unspoken pleas of your server and — for the love of God — tip them well.
Annette Sommers is a 19-year-old mass communication sophomore from  Dublin, Calif.