The other night, after the House passed what I call the \u201cBig Beautiful Bill of Goods\u201d (BBBOG), I went out to dinner at one of my favorite restaurants in Philadelphia. I know the people there; they are friendly, hardworking and they allow me to speak Italian with them.<\/p>\n
It is a place where I can forget that I am in a city where some of the trash is piling up on street corners (the garbage collectors were on strike) and some people are marching through those streets yelling about genocide. This restaurant is my Italian home away from home.<\/p>\n
After enjoying my Carciofi fritti and tagliatelle alla panna, all washed down with an Aperol Spritz, I was faced with an existential crisis. Pondering the check, which was quite reasonable, I had to decide whether to leave the 40% that I always tip at this restaurant I love, or cling to my principles and do what I said I would do on Facebook: leave nothing more than a 10% token.<\/p>\n
I made this vow of gratuity poverty after reading about the \u201cno tax on tips\u201d provision in the BBBOG. This, among many other aspects of the egregious mess that Congress passed, was one of the things that angered me the most. Why give special treatment to money you earn from tips, as opposed to all the other ways hard-working Americans pay the bills?<\/p>\n
Enough about food industry workers making their living on tips because they earn so little in their regular paychecks. Enough about how they work so hard to make sure that we all enjoy magnificent dining experiences (yeah, right).<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve heard these arguments repeatedly. My response comes from my \u201cblink and you will miss it\u201d foray into the food-service industry.<\/p>\n
I worked at a fast-food restaurant, which is even more grueling than working in a trendy bar or a Michelin-starred restaurant.<\/p>\n
Oh \u2014 and no tips.<\/p>\n
Turns out you don\u2019t get a gratuity after waiving \u201cHappy Trails\u201d to a cranky customer who just told you to do something anatomically impossible to yourself. So please, excuse me if I don\u2019t have much empathy for those who say they shouldn\u2019t have to pay taxes on their income.<\/p>\n
Tips are income, period. And that income averages $25 an hour for wait staff at full-service restaurants, according to the payroll company ADP. At upscale restaurants, $50 an hour is not uncommon.<\/p>\n
The solution for people who aren\u2019t happy with what they\u2019re earning from tips: Get another job.<\/p>\n
Maybe teach in a Catholic school, where they don\u2019t get tips and their entire paltry income is taxed. Maybe become a trash collector where the conditions of your employment are likely far worse than a job serving up platters of pasta. Perhaps become a health worker and empty bedpans, with no tips, for minimum wage.<\/p>\n
Whatever you do, though, do not try to convince me that your tips should get a subsidy from fellow taxpayers.<\/p>\n
In case you missed it, yes \u2014 I am outraged by Congress approving one of President Donald Trump\u2019s most pandering campaign promises. I doubt this put him over the top last November, but I do remember him out on the campaign trail talking like some 21st-century Emma Goldman about the value of the proletariat, and how they needed a break from the establishment.<\/p>\n
Giving one group of people a special tax break, whether or not they need or deserve it, is an insult to the other hardworking Americans who show up every day, do their jobs, and rarely get so much as a \u201cthank you,\u201d much less a 20% tip.<\/p>\n
I suppose I now have to learn how to cook.<\/p>\n
Christine Flowers is an immigration lawyer in Philadelphia. She wrote this for InsideSources.com. \u00a92025 Tribune Content Agency, LLC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The other night, after the House passed what I call the \u201cBig Beautiful Bill of Goods\u201d (BBBOG), I…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":314430,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3092],"tags":[51,557,25910,8179,32,98394,897,114629,114627,45863,391,280,8180,1523,114628,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-314429","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jobs","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-commentary","11":"tag-congress","12":"tag-donald-trump","13":"tag-house-of-representatives","14":"tag-jobs","15":"tag-marin-county","16":"tag-marin-voice","17":"tag-newsletter","18":"tag-opinion","19":"tag-restaurants","20":"tag-senate","21":"tag-taxes","22":"tag-tipping","23":"tag-uk","24":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114964692022789097","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314429\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/314430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}