I've got a question for all of you. At my club, we are paid waitress wage ($3.83/hr) plus whatever tips we collect by the end. On the pay stub we collect, it's estimated we collect $30/shift. However, this isn't at all a stable and accurate number.
I would say I, on average, walk away with $100 cash after tipout and house fee. There are nights where this is much more (and nights where I make nothing). My question is, my tips haven't been reported accurately, and I'm really concerned this could hurt me down the line.
When I first noticed this, I asked the manager to let me report my tips accurately. He obliged me and my paychecks dwindled to pennies due to the government withholding the money. I didn't mind this because I was making enough.
Then the bartender found out I was doing this and discouraged me from accurately reporting my tips, as there's no paper trail and I'm actually more likely to be audited if my tips are substantially different than my coworkers. So I listened to her and let management go back to reporting $30/shift.
But I've been depositing all the money I've made in the bank, and now I'm really concerned that I will get audited anyway, and that when I file my taxes with an accountant, I should bring in the spreadsheet of what I actually made (I've kept a log of all my tips since I started working 3 months ago) and make it right.
Does anyone have any advice? None of my deposits to the bank ever exceeded +$1000, but I don't know on what grounds the IRS decides to audit someone. I don't want this to hurt me down the line, but I'm afraid if I do say something, the entire club will get audited because of me, which is also not what I want.


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