[locust101]

This has already been banned in most of the west coast states. Other states and cities also have tip credit far above federal standard.

https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/minimum-wage/tipped

I feel betrayed that these laws are enacted without capping or preventing the practice of tipping. I doubt that tipping could be banned constitutionally due to past supreme court precedents but we really should re-evaluate and try to get rid of this practice. Why does a certain class of workers get this benefit that perpetuates race and age discrimination (white and young employees get tipped a lot more).

[paxys]

> I feel betrayed that these laws are enacted without capping or preventing the practice of tipping

How exactly can they do that? Make it illegal for two people to exchange money? Tipping is a social phenomenon, and it isn't going away via laws.

[nitwit005]

Everything humans do is a social phenomenon. That doesn't really mean anything.

You just ban asking for tips, leaving a space for a tip on receipt, etc. It's not hard.

[kyleee]

Wouldn’t a blanket ban on “asking for tips” be an infringement on a person’s freedom of speech? It’s essentially just asking for some money, which surely anyone is free to do

[nitwit005]

It depends if you mean the individual asking, or if they're asking because of company policies.

We ban businesses from having signs that are too tall or too bright, from doing door to door soliciting, making phone calls without consent, and a pile of other behaviors that could all be labeled as "speech", but which people find extremely irritating.

[sixstringtheory]

Tell that to Bernie Madoff, Elizabeth Holmes and SBF. There are limits on what you can say to people and how you can exchange money.

[kyleee]

Ha, those are fairy strong examples IMHO. A bit apples to oranges

[frankreyes]

The difference is temporal: tip is for a "past" already rendered product or service. Sbf, Holmes, et al, it's about a promise for "future" services, which have a risk associated of no delivery or render. When you've already eaten your burger there was no risk of uncertain delivery. The causal relationship is reversed

[akomtu]

It's a simple law: "price at the register cannot exceed the advertised price".

[JohnFen]

I'd love this! Not for tipping, but so that we can stop with this nonsense of not including sales tax in the price listed for things.

[kstrauser]

That could be tricky. When I live, a cold burrito in a refrigerator cabinet is considered to be groceries, and is untaxed. Heat up that burrito, and it's a taxable meal. Also, some non-profit organizations aren't taxed on purchases, so the sticker price is the final price for them.

You can't pre-calculate the final taxed price using the local tax algorithms as they are today. They number can't be known until the transaction takes place.

[em-bee]

you can just list two prices for cold and hot

[kstrauser]

That would be OK in that specific instance. However, there are a lot of rules like that, and I just wanted to mention a couple.

In any case, I'm not saying that it can't be done, just that it may be a lot complicated than adding a fixed percentage to every price label.

[Macha]

Europe manages it just fine

[tzs]

For a given class of goods Europe generally has one VAT rate for the whole country.

In the US the sales tax for a given in-person sale is the state sales tax, plus possibly county sales tax, city sales tax, and sometimes even special tax district sales tax.

For remote sales, it is similar except the tax is computed using the buyer's location rather than the seller's location.

[paxys]

Price at the register is exactly the same as the advertised price.

[akomtu]

Em.. no, the advertised price usually says "latte 4.50" but at the register it gets mysteriously padded with sales tax, tip tax, foo tax and bar tax, so you have to pay 6.50.

[pc86]

Nobody thinks anything is getting "padded" with sales tax other than Europeans who have never heard of the practice before and can't get over the fact that ~5% (the median US sales tax is 5.1%) wasn't disclosed as if that is making their breakfast unaffordable.

You're never required to tip so the "advertised price" and the price at the register are identical. You choosing to leave $2 on top of that doesn't change anything, even if it's only done through social pressure.

[xavor]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratuity#/media/File:Restauran...

Which bit do you not understand? End point taxes are not ubiquitos, and at least other countires have decent laws so people can see what they actually pay.

[Izkata]

Uhhh..

> > says "latte 4.50"

> > pay 6.50

> You're never required to tip so the "advertised price" and the price at the register are identical. You choosing to leave $2 on top of that doesn't change anything, even if it's only done through social pressure.

Taxes and tips aren't the same thing. Their $2 example is something you are required to pay.

[turquoisevar]

Silly attempt at shrugging off legitimate complaints notwithstanding, at least use an average sales tax when you do.

Now it just comes across as you saying that half the country is above 5%, which would’ve been a more honest statement as it seems considering few states however around 5% combined sales tax: https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/2023-sales-tax-rate...

[throw9away6]

Not in Seattle, they have a host of fees they add to the menu. That look like tips but aren’t

[yieldcrv]

Oh this is easy

Revoke the alcohol license if there are tip jars present, if its mentioned on receipts, the point of sale system, or if staff brings it up

Other discretionary things can be revoked too. Easements, performances, outdoor dining. This is entirely easy.

Have random audits to see how often payments match the receipts

Have a consumer protection agency launch random lawsuits and distribute funds to patrons

Encourage staff to mention that everyone is paid a full wage and have similar disclaimers on the menu and receipt, just like they put shellfish and undercooked disclaimers on the menu and in some places have to state it verbally

Create liability so that any private lawyer can try to sue everyone just like was done to create California’s cancer disclaimer, they can function alongside the consumer protection agency

Make it illegal for point of sale systems to push tipping for certain merchant codes, merchants have to snitch on the POS provider and vice versa when anyone questions why the system is guilt tripping them into a tip

Everyone is a node within a network, graph theory, you can control behavior by regulating the intermediary, the nodes will flip their behavior in a distributed fashion. Think about everything that way and you can find how to control all facets of life under any governance system.

[simonsarris]

When the town clerk is processing your building permit they can't ask for a tip. Well, they can and do in some cultures, with the understanding that you'll get better service! But it's illegal in the US.

So it's not too difficult to imagine that it can be done.

[Ajay-p]

One option is to ban a business from asking soliciting tips, or regulation on payment processors who do business in Chicago to remove the tip line. It's possible but it would see a lawsuit for restriction of speech. IANL but that may not be enough of a defense, since the customer is still free to give a tip (speak with money) but the business would not be allowed to solicit gratuity's.

[JohnFen]

> I feel betrayed that these laws are enacted without capping or preventing the practice of tipping

Just don't tip. There's no law saying you have to.

[worik]

> There's no law saying you have to.

Behavior is not defined by law. Social constructs and concepts matter too

Be the only non tipper? No. That breaks the golden rule.

(There is no tipping where I live, I am glad)

[JohnFen]

This is true, but two things mitigate it. The first is that if you're the one paying the bill, it's pretty easy to do so in a way that nobody you're with can tell how much, or if, you tip. The other thing is that the social consequences aren't that large.

In the end, it's voluntary behavior.

[vineyardmike]

To be transparent, if I saw someone not tip when they took the bill I’d say something. I’ve heard of people looking explicitly at tips when evaluating dates, because it’s perceived as a (vague) proxy for empathy. I’ve also seen workers complain to the customer over not tipping, so you can totally be “outed” by them too.

I’m against tipping like a lot of this thread, but it’s a standard practice in the US. Being the one non-tipper is not changing the system, you’re just hurting the service worker.

[olalonde]

Theoretically possible. But have you tried it? I forgot to tip once when I visited the US and the waitress nearly assaulted me.

[JohnFen]

> But have you tried it?

Yes, I have, and have never had the experience you've had. That sounds more like you got a terrible server than anything else.

[olalonde]

Well, it was in San Francisco. Is this something you do frequently? Don't waiters/waitresses confront you about it?

[Simulacra]

In San Francisco..yeah. At least when I lived there the general mentality of servers was a littlw militant. Not tipping a bartender by mistake had one almost come across the bar at me. If I were not tipping in a major city, I would hustle out before the server noticed.

[Mountain_Skies]

Weird you left out gender and attractiveness.

[pfannkuchen]

Attractiveness isn’t a protected class, and gender in this case goes opposite the direction people usually complain about. If you want moral sympathy for a cause, it’s helpful to pick a subset of the intersection between your cause and the morality that will be most impactful.