Case Study: Tip Allocation

If you are a large food and beverage establishment, and you do not have a good faith agreement in place for allocating tips to your employees, you will need to follow a specific process to figure out the allocations. The following example takes you step-by-step through this process:

Patsy's Surf & Turf is a large food and beverage establishment that has chosen to make tip allocations using its actual payroll period and gross receipts attributable to employees. The establishment had gross receipts of $200,000 for a payroll period and reported tips of $12,400. Directly tipped employees reported $11,400 of the total, and indirectly tipped employees reported the remaining $1,000.

Directly Tipped Employees	Gross Receipts for the Payroll Period	Tips Reported
A	$36,000	$ 2,160
B	32,000	1,760
C	46,000	3,620
D	34,000	1,600
E	24,000	900
F	28,000	1,360
Total	$200,000	$11,400

Step 1: The amount to be allocated to directly tipped employees is $16,000, which is computed as follows:

8% X $200,000 (gross receipts) = $16,000

Step 2: Tips reported by indirectly tipped employees are subtracted from this amount.

$16,000 (8% of gross receipts)

- 1,000 (Tips reported by indirectly tipped employees)

= $15,000 (Amount allocable to directly tipped employees)

Step 3: The amount to be allocated to each directly tipped employee is computed as follows:

Directly Tipped Employees	Amount Allocable To Directly Tipped Employees	Times: Gross Receipts Ratio	Equals: Amount Allocated Per Employee
A	$ 15,000	18% ( = 36,000/200,000)	$ 2,700
B	$ 15,000	16% ( = 32,000/200,000)	$ 2,400
C	$ 15,000	23% ( = 46,000/200,000)	$ 3,450
D	$ 15,000	17% ( = 34,000/200,000)	$ 2,550
E	$ 15,000	12% ( = 24,000/200,000)	$ 1,800
F	$ 15,000	14% ( = 28,000/200,000)	$ 2,100
Total		100%	$ 15,000

Step 4: Each employee's shortfall is then calculated:

Directly Tipped Employees	Amount Allocable To Directly Tipped Employees	Less: Tips Reported	Equals: Employee Shortfall
A	$ 2,700	$ 2,160	$ 540
B	$ 2,400	$ 1,760	$ 640
C	$ 3,450	$ 3,620	. . .
D	$ 2,550	$ 1,600	$ 950
E	$ 1,800	$ 900	$ 900
F	$ 2,100	$ 1,360	$ 740
Total shortfall			$ 3,770

Step 5: The total amount to be allocated to directly tipped employees with shortfalls is $3,600, computed as follows:

$ 16,000 (8% of gross receipts)

- $ 12,400 (Total tips reported)

= $ 3,600 (Amount to be allocated)

Step 6: The $3,600 is allocated to each directly tipped employee with a shortfall, as follows:

Shortfall Employees	Allocable Amount	Times: Shortfall Ratio	Equals: Amount of Allocation
A	$ 3,600	540/3,770	$ 516
B	$ 3,600	$ 640/3,770	$ 611
D	$ 3,600	$ 950/3,770	$ 907
E	$ 3,600	900/3,770	$ 859
F	$ 3,600	740/3,770	$ 707
$ 3,660

You have no liability to an employee if amounts allocated to the employee under these rules don't reflect your employee's actual tips. If an employee's total tip allocation reported on Form W-2, Wage and Tax Statement, varies from the correct allocation by more than 5 percent, however, you must adjust the employee's allocation and review all tip allocations made to other employees in the same establishment to assure that their tip allocations are within 5 percent of the correct amount.