April blues...

April 7, 2010 11:55 AM

Tax question.

I worked as a waitress for most of the past year and every night at the end of my shift I had to tip out the bussers (this was between 15-35% of what I made each night). The restaurant, as far as I know, kept no record of these tip outs. However, I kept track of them, and once my manager mentioned that tip outs were tax-deductible, although he never mentioned how or why and seemed disinclined to discuss the matter further. I am wondering if anyone knows anything about if this is possible and how to do it. Thank you.

posted by melangell to Work & Money (3 answers total)

I somehow can't find the IRS code, but i found it referenced a few times.

Regardless, the answer's no.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tip_out

If someone who has better skills and more than like 2 seconds can find "Internal Revenue Service Bulletin 4.12 Interest/Dividends/Other Types of Income" then you can see the text for yourself
posted by brainmouse at 12:00 PM on April 7, 2010

Oh, found it on the IRS site:

http://www.irs.gov/faqs/faq/0,,id=199756,00.html
posted by brainmouse at 12:03 PM on April 7, 2010

if you documented that you tip-out, and you reported all your tips to your employer, then you do not include in your income the allocated tips in box 8 of Form W-2 (PDF).

This seems more like a yes, but the "deduction" is just that the tip-outs were never really income.
posted by smackfu at 3:05 PM on April 7, 2010