Pay Your Taxes

You don't want Uncle Sam breathing down you neck wondering where his share is

Many bars will claim your tips and pay your taxes for you.  This is ideal as you will get paperwork from them at the end of the year and often get a tax return.  If you work at a bar where you are responsible for claiming your own tips, pay your taxes.  Its that simple.  There's a lot of reasons to pay your taxes even outside of the idea that you may get caught. 

1. You need income

By this I mean that in order to get approved for a car load, mortgage, or even an appartment lease you need to be able to show proof of income outside of the wad of cash in your sock drawer.  Noone is going to loan money to someone who cannot prove on paper that they are able to pay it back.  You may say thiat you can simply buy your car with cash.  Well, that brings us to our next point.

2. Jail/Fines

If you start buying things like cars and houses and have not claimed any income in recent years you're going to have a hard time explaining to the IRS where that money came from.  If you don't pay your taxes and the IRS finds out you will be stuck with huge fines and may even be facing jail time.

3. Its easy 

Some people don't pay their taxes because they simply dont know how.  All you need to do is go to any of the popular tax firms and tell them how much you made.  They will ask you a series of quesions about living expences, dependents, and a variety of other things.  These people do this for a living.  They know what they are doing so you don't have to.  If you don't want to go somewhere to get your taxes done there is software available that you can use from your home computer. 

The point is that if the bar you work in doesn't claim your tips for you, you probably should.