Tips - pre-tax or post-tax? 小費計算法，按稅前或稅後總數？

Your Tips, Pre-tax or Post-tax?

My friends and I love to dine out, we enjoy the foods, drinks and laughs together. When it comes to tipping our waiters, most of the time we follow the rules of "10% for lunch, 15% for dinner," unless the service was excellent or horrible, then we might adjust the numbers.

However, the 10%-15% of tips are based on the total amount of the bill, or the pre-tax number? People have different opinion on this issue. Personally, I'll take the pre-tax number. Why? Because I don't have to tip our government for sales tax portion, whom obviously didn't serve me the meals.

There's an interesting story in the LA Times about this topic. full story

While we know tipping is an "American Culture," but what do you do when you travel abroad? Do you tip them, if so, how much? My friend and I went to Europe few months ago, it was the first time for both of us. We were told by our tour-manager we should tip about 10%-15% just like in the US, but when we did it at a Chinese restaurant in Paris, the waiter seemed overwhelm with our generous 10% tip!

Then I checked with a friend whose boyfriend is Parisian, she said Europeans seldom tip, if you do, 1 euro is more than enough! We were surprised to learn that. So we followed her advice, we gave 1-2 euros when we went to restaurants in Italy. Sometime we found our bills with an add-on 15% service tax, while others just the total food and beverages cost. Same thing in England, a local friend told me "you don't have to tip, it's not our culture."

I know in most Asian countries, unless you dine in a super fancy restaurant or in a hotel, where service tax will be added to your bill, otherwise you don't tip the waiter. Here's some useful guides for the tipping around the world, from the Huffington Post website.

Bon Appetit!

小費計算法，按稅前或稅後總數？

談起美國的飲食文化，不得不提到小費。許多在餐館打工的侍應生，大部份收入都是靠客人給的小費。很多人都會按「午餐10%、晚餐15%」的比例去給小費。

然而令人混淆的是，這個小費的比例，應該是按帳單上稅前的總數，還是稅後的總數呢？我個人會以稅前總數作為計算標準，因為稅是繳給政府的，不必再給小費了吧？

世界上每個國家都有不同的小費文化，當然美加地區大至相同，亞洲國家除非去高級餐館或酒店，帳單內一般都會含服務費，一般的大排檔、小食中心等，則不需要給小費。幾個月前我和友人第一次去歐洲旅行，當時導遊就告訴我們，用餐時要付10-15%的小費。

當我們在巴黎一家中餐館用餐後，就給了10% 小費，可是來收錢的侍應生卻第一口就說「你們給多了」，當我說「那包括你的小費呀」，他就笑笑的走開了。我想，他心裡一定在想這兩個豪客口袋必定有大把錢。

後來從另一友人口中得知，歐洲的小費文化沒有美國那麼強，很多時候都不給，要麼也給一兩塊歐元。英國的朋友也告訴我，他們一般出去用餐也不會加小費。

既然每個國家的小費文化都不同，建議大家在出國前，最好先了解當地的文化，以免多給了自己「吃虧」，少給了遭到人家的「白眼」。