Tipping Question

[j-can]

Don't laugh...I admit I am not very worldly
A bunch of us went out to a fancy Restaurant last night a great time was had by all....Good food, good conversation, good company.....When our bills came our waiter informed us that he had already added his 18.5% tip to our bill
is this normal now a days?

[Nunya]

For parties of 10 or more, the gratuity is automatically added.

[j-can]

For parties of 10 or more, the gratuity is automatically added.

See dats why I ran straight on here TY

[Xavier]

Yes...that is normal in North America.

[Gen]

An updated tax rule is causing restaurants to rethink the practice of adding automatic tips to the tabs of large parties.

Starting in January, the Internal Revenue Service will begin classifying those automatic gratuities as service charges—which it treats as regular wages, subject to payroll tax withholding—instead of tips, which restaurants leave up to the employees to report as income.

The change would mean more paperwork and added costs for the restaurants—and a potential financial hit for waiters and waitresses who live on their tips but don't always report them fully.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887323893004579055224175110910

interesting

[Gen]

i know for yearsssssssssssss customers were complaining about the automatic tipping to the BBB and anybody who would listen.

[twiney]

charge the price of the food, pay servers a decent wage and let people tip for service. Automatically adding tip does not sit well with me.

[Tropicana]

Don't laugh...I admit I am not very worldly
A bunch of us went out to a fancy Restaurant last night a great time was had by all....Good food, good conversation, good company.....When our bills came our waiter informed us that he had already added his 18.5% tip to our bill
is this normal now a days?

Yes.

[Gen]

depends on where you go, and which city

i don't find it the norm in smaller, private restuarants, and even then it depends on the foot traffic, that is, local customers who know that 15-20% is the norm or foreigners who not used to leaving such a big tip

a mean yuh have people a leave 5.00 tip on 500.00 bill, all like dem need fi just ban for LIFE from that restuarant

Don't laugh...I admit I am not very worldly
A bunch of us went out to a fancy Restaurant last night a great time was had by all....Good food, good conversation, good company.....When our bills came our waiter informed us that he had already added his 18.5% tip to our bill
is this normal now a days?

[goldilocks]

at least he informed you that the tip was on there already.

I hope the service was worth 18.5% tip. I would have a problem if it was not good service.

My first "career" was waiting tables and I routinely pulled 20% and once or twice 100% of the bill in tips. We were paid $2.36 per hour and the IRS had just started cracking down on reporting tips. They wanted to see at least 10% of our sales reported. This was early 1980's; no bills and daily cash