UPDATE UPDATE:
I will call the DOL on monday when it opens & I’ll contact the IRS asap as well. Thank you all so much for your advice, I appreciate it & I needed to hear it <3
UPDATE:
Just had a meeting with the owner (Charles) & the manager (I’m sorry to the commenters telling me not to have a meeting, I didn’t see your comments until afterward.)
Charles said that he doesn’t keep track of our cash tips so he doesn’t know how much to pay in taxes on the cash tips we get. He said he pays like 35% on what he thinks we get in cash tips. And because he pays taxes on that, he doesn’t have a lot of money afterwards?
It turns out that he’s been claiming our credit card tips as his income so he has to pay taxes on that too. Then he takes the credit card processing fees out of the online credit card tips that people give us and after that, there’s hardly any money left in that pool to tip us out with.
He said that sometimes he has to use his own money to give us each that $5 on our paychecks.
That wasn’t making a lot of sense to us honestly so one of my coworkers’ dad came in to talk to the owner & after their conversation, Charles agreed to backpay us for the tips we should’ve gotten since we started working there. My coworker’s dad (Mike) is in the restaurant business & Mike said that Charles should never have claimed our online tips as his income so he needs to fix that. Charles also said that he doesn’t know what to do to fix it so Mike tried to explain it to him & help him out. Mike told Charles that he has a lawyer he’s going to talk to on our behalf if nothing changes.
Mike thinks that Charles knows what to do now & that he’ll backpay us & tip us out appropriately from now on. But Charles probably won’t backpay the former employees who he owes money to unless they reach out, and he might not even do it then. My best friends are pushing for me to call the DOL anyway even though Charles said he’s going to fix this. Should I give Charles a chance to fix this or should I call anyway?
Original Post:
I (23) work part time at a boba shop in Washington. Most of my coworkers are 16-19 years old & this is the first job they’ve ever had. During my job interview, the manager told me that they take all of the online/credit card tips & use that money to pay taxes on the cash tips that us workers receive, so we don’t have to claim the cash tips on our taxes.
I have never heard that before but I really wanted the job so I was like, whatever. A month ago, my coworkers added me to a group chat talking about how weird it is that we only receive $5 exactly in credit card tips on our paychecks, no matter how many hours we’ve worked that pay period.
One of my coworkers talked to the manager, who is related to the owner, and apparently the owner told them that his tax advisor advised him to keep & use the credit card tips to pay for business expenses, such as licensing fees, credit card processing fees, and supplies.
My coworkers want to have a meeting with the manager & write a letter to the owner. I’ve filed a complaint with the DOL but they haven’t gotten back to me yet so I’d like to call them as well once they’re open.
This situation makes me so sad because the manager & the owner are really nice people & it’s a family business. I don’t want to do anything to hurt that. I would love any advice y’all have.