Early on my wife and I worked in the hotel/ hospitality industry long before tips were taxed.
The government should have never been involved in taxing gratuity.
Tipping is private matter between the customer and the person/employee directly providing the services. whether poor or excellent service, it's a statement of appreciation for personalized service.
I do however support the servers sharing a percentage of gratuity with other employees, at their discretion, who directly assisted in the service worthy of the tip. Bus boys, cooks, bell hops, valet, housekeeping, bouncers, bartenders...etc etc ...it can be looked at as a team effort and a good "team" as we all know wins and loses together.
Maybe a cook and server have a beef with each other and the cook deliberately sabotages the server. (This happens all the time!)
An establishment can have a tip sharing policy or not, and a lot do....I don't think the business itself should control or get a cut as they benefit from happy returning customers and control the pricing and profits....and the government should not be involved in tips EVER!
Trump understands this!
I'll go one further and say gambling/ lottery taxes is another tax that should be abolished.
I don't see the government taking any risk buying tickets or fronting me money to gamble and yet they can take about half of the winnings?
The government/state is the biggest racketeer in the lottery/ gaming industry regulating promoting operating, controlling the odds and profiting and then they want a cut from the poor sap they are already cheating when he finally wins.
Just my $.02
FTR I don't gamble