Free Republic

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) proposed a revenue procedure this week to crack down on the service industry's reporting of tips. The Service Industry Tip Compliance Agreement (SITCA) program would be a voluntary tip reporting system in which the IRS and service industry companies cooperate, according to the announcement Monday. As part of the proposal, the IRS will give the public until early May to provide feedback on the program before implementing it. "Those 87,000 new IRS agents that you were promised would only target the rich," tweeted Mike Palicz, federal affairs manager at Americans for Tax Reform. "They're coming...

Before her third consecutive double shift at a pizzeria last year, Grace Velez pulled her hair, which fell past her waist, into pigtails. Ms. Velez says she was used to inappropriate comments from customers, but what she experienced that day shocked her. Regulars who usually never tipped put money in the pizzeria’s tip jar. A few older men winked at Ms. Velez, 21, as they dropped in cash. Another man, who Ms. Velez guessed was in his 30s, tried to flirt with her for 10 minutes before asking her whether she was a high school student. About halfway through her...

The combination of tipping-based compensation structures with demands for overexaggerated friendliness lead customers to feel they have power over service workers.Anywhere between 70% and 90% of restaurant servers and bartenders have likely been subjected to sexual harassment—from unwanted comments and looks, requests for dates, to physical touching—by customers. There are also many anecdotal indications that the behavior has heightened during the pandemic, with wait staff reporting what’s come to be known as “maskual harassment”: servers being asked to remove their masks and show their faces for the gratification of customers. A new study aims to get to the reason behind...

RIFLE, Colo. — Many stores and restaurants are telling people not to bring their guns inside, but one western Colorado restaurant not only embraces the practice of packing heat, it encourages its customers to carry openly — and its waitresses do, too. As she takes your order at Shooters Grill in the town of Rifle — yes, Rifle — waitress Ashlee Saenz carries a pad, pen and a loaded Ruger .357 Blackhawk revolver holstered on her leg, Old West style. It's loaded, and she knows how to use it

(Newser) – Many waiters are still waiting for their minimum wage to rise—which it hasn't in more than two decades. The federal minimum for servers is set at $2.13 an hour, though if they don't make at least the regular minimum of $7.25 when tips are added in, employers are supposed to make up the difference. That doesn't always happen, a waitress tells Bloomberg. She saw her wages plummet when she moved from California, which has a state minimum of $6.75, to New Mexico, which is one of 13 states to use the federal minimum. President Obama has called for...

The Heart Attack Grill a theme restaurant whose specialties include the Quadruple Bypass Burger and Flatliner Fries, cooked in pure lard is making health-care professionals' blood pressure rise, and not because of the menu. It is because of the waitresses' naughty nurse uniforms. The waitresses wear skimpy, cleavage-baring outfits, high heels and thigh-high stockings a male fantasy that some nursing organizations say is an insult to the profession...