Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!

Selale

Just checking Selale for a takeaway. Think the paper menu we have is about 2 years old. Happened to look at their online menu as well. Had no idea their prices had gone up 20/25 % ! No idea why.

Used to be well under a tenner for most dishes. Now around £11-£15.

Are there any reasonably priced kebab restaurants left on Green Lanes?

Tags for Forum Posts: selale, service charge, tips

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Permalink Reply by matt on September 30, 2018 at 10:00

Certianly a cash tip was predominantly the way in the past. It was best if that was then put in a jar with all other tips and then all tip money shared out between all staff including the kitchen at the end of the night. But all staff needed to be pulling their weight for that to work harmoniously

The government of course didn't like this as it isn't taxable. The service charge is as it's part of recorded income.

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Permalink Reply by Hugh on September 30, 2018 at 11:32

Any income received by waiters is taxable. HMRC treats all gratuities as taxable income. The difference is in the enforceability of the tax rules.

The tax rules require the employer to deduct tax on any gratuities they collect and distribute. This always includes any gratuities made on credit cards and subsequently distributed. If the business chooses to act as 'tronc master' (the person who controls the disbursement of any tips via a tronc system), they would normally also collect tax on any cash tips paid through this system too. Where the tronc master is not the business itself, the tronc master is still required by law to run a payroll and report all payments made to individuals to the HMRC. Any admin deduction made from the tronc pool would seek to cover the costs of this.

If the business decides on HOW tips are shared (i.e they distribute the tips or make the tronc rules), then National Insurance is due as well as tax and the business is responsible for making sure it’s paid through PAYE.

The way tips are distributed has many variations, from business-takes-all, through good and bad tronc systems to individual waiter takes all. Waiters in the top restaurants can pull in serious tips money, even in a society as reluctant to tip as the UK. So, the way a business chooses to run the tips system can make a serious difference.

Consider, for the sake of convenience, around £100 of tips due to an individual waiter. Here's how its value to a typical waiter can differ, where its taxation is concrened :

Tips distributed via a tronc where the business decides the tronc rules (so basic rate tax and standard rate NI are deducted) - waiter gets £68.

Tips distributed via a tronc where the business doesn't decide the tronc rules (so only basic rate tax is deducted) and the tronc master correctly reports all earnings to HMRC - waiter gets £80.

Tips given in cash with no tronc system where the waiter can keep any cash tips they earn, or where the tronc master, improperly, doesn't report all earnings to HMRC - waiter gets £100 (although it goes without saying that this should then be declared on an individual's tax return by any waiter strictly sticking to the letter of the law!).

Of course it's never that simple. Some waiters will be earning enough to stray into the higher tax category (yes really). More significantly, tronc systems can be well run or badly run. Most work whereby tronc points are awarded to each waiter. The number of points determines the size of a waiter's share. The more points, the greater the share. The best ones are transparent, where the rules about how points are awarded or taken away are clear and fairly applied. Moreover the exact points distribution amongst the waiters is made common knowledge. (Even then, a good waiter may make less under such a system than if they get to keep their own tips; a bad waiter may do rather better). However, often tronc systems are much more secretive and open to abuse by the tronc master, who is usually a manager. In the worst cases, the tronc master will abuse the system badly, awarding a disproportionate share to themselves and using the rest to reward allies and punish those out of favour. But even the worst troncs are better from a financial standpoint than a business-takes-all system where waiters get nothing.

So, it's tough to know how much of your tip a waiter will get unless you have intimate knowledge of how tips are distributed in a particular restaurant at a given point in time. What you can be sure of though is that waiters have a better chance of receiving a bigger proportion of any tips you give if you pay them in cash - but even then they may get to keep nothing.

PS: With regards to the request Maggie reported to put cash in a waiter's hand, this may be due to an unusual tronc system which discriminates between cash on the table and cash put in a hand, But equally, it may have been the waiter's ruse to subvert the system. Where a bill is paid by card and only the tip paid in cash, anything put in the hand is much easier to conceal from other waiters than notes laid out in a table.

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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on October 1, 2018 at 6:22

Breaking news

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-45701799

Permalink Reply by John McMullan on October 1, 2018 at 8:46

I completely disagree with this: "In the worst cases, the tronc master will abuse the system badly, awarding a disproportionate share to themselves and using the rest to reward allies and punish those out of favour. But even the worst troncs are better from a financial standpoint than a business-takes-all system where waiters get nothing."

I would much rather the head of the tronc took all the money than played divide and rule making the workplace miserable.

Permalink Reply by Hugh on October 1, 2018 at 9:29

John, hence my very deliberate qualification of ‘from a financial standpoint’. Like many of us, you may dislike what my statement implies about workplace conditions, but what I wrote is factually correct.

Permalink Reply by Hugh on October 1, 2018 at 9:38

Thanks Michael. It’ll be interesting to see just how any legislation is framed. One has to wonder how staff can check that 100% of tips are distributed unless the legislation enforces transparency on this part of company accounting as well as on every aspect of all tronc systems in which a company is involved (although one presumes that non-company tronc masters will continue to have a freer reign).

Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on September 30, 2018 at 6:35

Out if interest, have people noticed if the GL restaurants are as busy as they used to be on a weekend evening? I normally only use them at lunchtimes so haven’t seen if they are still attracting queues.