6. Tips(p14)

Tips your employee receives from customers are generally subject to withholding. Your employee must report cash tips to you by the 10th of the month after the month the tips are received. The report should include tips you paid over to the employee for charge customers, tips the employee received directly from customers, and tips received from other employees under any tip-sharing arrangement. Both directly and indirectly tipped employees must report tips to you. No report is required for months when tips are less than $20. Your employee reports the tips on Form 4070, Employee's Report of Tips to Employer, or on a similar statement. The statement must be signed by the employee and must include:

• The employee's name, address, and SSN,
• Your name and address,
• The month or period the report covers, and
• The total of tips received during the month or period.

Both Forms 4070 and 4070-A, Employee's Daily Record of Tips, are included in Publication 1244, Employee's Daily Record of Tips.

You must collect income tax, employee social security tax, and employee Medicare tax on the employee's tips. If an employee reports to you in writing $20 or more of tips in a month, the tips are also subject to FUTA tax.

You can collect these taxes from the employee's wages or from other funds he or she makes available. See Tips treated as supplemental wages in section 7 for more information. Stop collecting the employee social security tax when his or her wages and tips for tax year 2011 reach $106,800; collect the income and employee Medicare taxes for the whole year on all wages and tips. You are responsible for the employer social security tax on wages and tips until the wages (including tips) reach the limit. You are responsible for the employer Medicare tax for the whole year on all wages and tips. File Form 941 or Form 944 to report withholding and employment taxes on tips.

If, by the 10th of the month after the month for which you received an employee's report on tips, you do not have enough employee funds available to deduct the employee tax, you no longer have to collect it. If there are not enough funds available, withhold taxes in the following order.

1. Withhold on regular wages and other compensation.
2. Withhold social security and Medicare taxes on tips.
3. Withhold income tax on tips.

Report tips and any collected and uncollected social security and Medicare taxes on Form W-2 and on lines 5b and 5c of Form 941 (lines 4b and 4c of Form 944). Report an adjustment on line 7c of Form 941 (line 6 of the 2010 Form 944) for the uncollected social security and Medicare taxes. Enter the amount of uncollected social security and Medicare taxes in box 12 of Form W-2 with codes A and B. See section 13 and the Instructions for Forms W-2 and W-3.

If you operate a large food or beverage establishment, you must report allocated tips under certain circumstances. However, do not withhold income, social security, or Medicare taxes on allocated tips.

A large food or beverage establishment is one that provides food or beverages for consumption on the premises, where tipping is customary, and where there were normally more than 10 employees on a typical business day during the preceding year.

The tips may be allocated by one of three methods—hours worked, gross receipts, or good faith agreement. For information about these allocation methods, including the requirement to file Forms 8027 electronically if 250 or more forms are filed, see the Instructions for Form 8027.

Employers may participate in the Tip Rate Determination and Education Program. The program primarily consists of two voluntary agreements developed to improve tip income reporting by helping taxpayers to understand and meet their tip reporting responsibilities. The two agreements are the Tip Rate Determination Agreement (TRDA) and the Tip Reporting Alternative Commitment (TRAC). A tip agreement, the Gaming Industry Tip Compliance Agreement (GITCA), is available for the gaming (casino) industry. Additionally, the IRS is offering an expanded tip reporting and education program for food and beverage industry employers called the Attributed Tip Income Program (ATIP). ATIP has simple enrollment requirements and procedures. To find out more about the program, or to identify the IRS Tip Coordinator for your state, call the IRS at 1-800-829-4933. To get more information about TRDA and TRAC agreements See Pub 3144, Tips on Tips. For more information on ATIP agreements see Publication 1461, ATIP Attributed Tip Income Brochure. Additionally you can access IRS.gov and enter the keywords MSU tips to get more information about ATIP, GITCA, TRDA, or TRAC agreements.