Can an employer dictate what a server declares as their cash tips?

It is most certainly NOT at the discretion of the individual. The law requires a tipped employee to accurately report the actual amount of all tips received. It also requires the employer to accurately report those tips on the employees W-2.

If the employer suspects that the employee is committing tax fraud, it is reasonable of him to take steps to be sure he isn't.

Richard

Servers do pay tax on their tips. Because they seldom have records to prove how much they make in tips, the government automatically taxes them 10% of their total income. Maybe it's more than that now. It was 10% when my girls were in serving jobs. The government KNOWS that waiters and waitresses are getting tips, so these people must add 10% to their income before submitting their taxes. If they don't, the revenue staff will do it for them. One of the reasons that servers prefer cash tips is because tips that are given via credit card or debit card, they have to wait to get those until the restaurant is sure that the charges clear the credit card company or bank. That might be two weeks that they have to wait. Also, when getting cash tips the restaurant owner doesn't know exactly how much they got, so when it comes time to tip-out at the end of the night, rather than telling the servers to put a percentage of their tips into the tip-out jar, they just tell them "everybody put $10.00 in". If a server has made $100.00 in tips that night, she then gets to keep $90.00. If the owner told everyone to put in 20% of their tips, she would only be left with $80.00. Don't worry about servers getting away with your hard-earned cash. They do have to pay tax on tips, AND they don't make more than minimum wage to begin with. That's all the restaurants will pay them for wages because they assume that the server will make up the rest of her income in tips. That isn't always the case. My girls had many people skip out on them without leaving a tip. Waitressing is damn hard work and the servers deserve the tips they get to boost up their income.

Yes, the owner is entitled to know if you are reporting your tips correctly. There are cases where if they tips were not reported then the IRS went after the employer for failure to report and also to pay the taxes on the tips which were unreported.

You have to, by law, declare all of your tips. Your employer doesn't want an audit from the IRS, and neither should you. They are protecting themselves and you.

That is an issue between the tsxpyer and the IRS. Unless you are getting a matching contribution to your Social Security account.

Yes. They are legally obligated to make sure their servers are reporting their tips accurately.

That is taxable income and the gov't wants to make sure they get their money.

yeah they have the right to do that, they already know whats gonna be on ur paycheck so why do u care?

yes they need to know in order to file something that has to do with the taxes of the buisness or something...