Re:You Want 20% for Handing Me a Muffin? The Awkward Etiquet...
by cardiffspaceman on Wednesday October 17, 2018 @03:28PM
(#18242832)
> They have deceptively changed the tip rate from 20% to 21.6%.
It's simply a bug. I got a suggested tip amount on a bar bill, the other day and it was clearly derived from the total of all the food and beverage, before taxes. It was all there in writing, and the figures were easy for me to check in my head.
Re:You Want 20% for Handing Me a Muffin? The Awkward Etiquet...
by Balgair on Wednesday October 17, 2018 @03:57PM
(#18243123)
Oh, with drinks it's even harder to calculate in the US. The 'typical' tip, regardless of (a reasonable) price is $1 flat. For a $3 domestic, that's a ~33% tip. For a $7 microbrew that's ~14% tip. Even with $10 martinis, $1 is 'typical'. Trying to factor that all in to the tip on the bill makes for a heck of a problem, especially after a few drinks!
Re:You Want 20% for Handing Me a Muffin? The Awkward Etiquet...
by spdionis on Wednesday October 17, 2018 @07:20PM
(#18244672)
I just meant that to simplify literally everything you could just work only in post-tax numbers like the rest of the world does.
Obviously this would indeed increase tip amount, but it would definitely decrease confusion and probably fix itself over the long run if the new tip amount was too big.
The convention in the US is to compute the tip on the pre-tax amount. If the pre-tax price is $10, a 20% tip is $2 and 8% tax is $0.80, for a total of $12.80.
Now, some of this software has come along and tried to sneak in a change to the formula where the tip is computed on the post-tax amount. They take $10, add 8% tax to get $10.80, and then compute 20% of that for the tip, for a total of $12.96.
They have deceptively changed the tip rate from 20% to 21.6%.
Whether prices are listed tax inclusive or tax exclusive isn't the issue. Even with tax-inclusive pricing like Europe has, it still would have been possible to sneak in a change to the formula for computing the tip.