Why would I inflict this topic on the good people of AU? Well, because I came across an assertion that I had not seen before. On FlyerTalk, there is a discussion of train travel that morphed into a discussion of tipping. The first quote is from post #17 in the thread.
The second quote is from post #27, where I believe the above link will open the thread.The dining car workers are classified by the IRS as tipped employees who automatically are taxed on a percentage of the bill that the IRS presumes is their tip. So, if you stiff them, it's adding insult to injury--they are actually paying out of pocket for the privilege of serving you!)
Can anyone confirm or refute the assertion that Amtrak dining car employees are required to report imputed tips? What about sleeping car attendants?What I was referring to in my post is that large employers with tippable food service employees (Amtrak certainly qualifies) are required to impute 8 % of the gross food service sales as tips and report that amount both on the employee’s W2 form (in Box 8) and to the IRS.