[NorthMountain]

You are wrong from beginning to end.

You give a waiter a “tip” because he did some work for you.

YOU PAID HIM FOR DOING WORK.

But you’re entrenched in some sort of odd ideology, and immune to facts and reason.

Goodbye.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

I have presented nothing but facts.

You are not paying the waiter wages.

If you were you would be the employer and you are not. If you are the employer you would then need to fill out a whole bunch of paperwork, you would have to pay FICA, you would have to pay unemployment insurance and many other things and you don't. So they are not your employee, you are not paying wages, you are giving a gift.

So, gift tax exemption.

I am not sure what is so difficult about this concept.

I guess it is because of the way the media has presented it to the public for so long. And as we know, the media is not very accurate.