Is it legal to give non cash tips to waiters and other servers and what are the consequences in terms of taxes? I wasn't sure I should ask this under Law or Personal Finance &amp; Money. I was wondering what the rules are regarding non-cash tips in the United States. By non-cash tips, I do not mean using a credit card, but rather giving a tip using something of value other than USD: movie tickets, silver coins, etc. Additionally, how is that treated in terms of reporting and taxes?
https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p531.pdf Page 2: The value of noncash tips, such as tickets, passes, or other items of value, is also income and subject to tax Page 5: What tips to report. Generally, you must report all tips you received in 2016 on your tax return, including both cash tips and noncash tips. Any tips you reported to your employer as required in 2016 are included in the wages shown in box 1 of your Form W-2. Add to the amount in box 1 only the tips you did not report to your employer
It is legal for a company to ask for any information they want as a condition of doing business with you, so long as their request isn't proscribed by law. I don't know of any jurisdiction where a request for banking or credit information is illegal. (In this case, however, it does seem like you are being phished. You could report the matter to your country's consumer protection agency.)
There are vendors providing software to facilitate this sort of task. Avalara is perhaps the best known, but I don't have any experience with it and couldn't say whether it's actually any good or not. But the bottom line is that in a destination-based sourcing regime, sales taxes must be computed based on the address of the destination, not city or ZIP code associated with that address. As Avalara has noted, this is a giant hassle, but it's nonetheless the current state of the law. Of course, this assumes the seller has sufficient nexus with Louisiana to trigger a duty to collect sales taxes in the first place. From the question, it is not clear whether this is true.
Canadian law defines "theft" thus: Every one commits theft who fraudulently and without colour of right takes, or fraudulently and without colour of right converts to his use or to the use of another person, anything, whether animate or inanimate, with intent (to deprive the owner, pledge as security, mess it up) In this case, you accepted what seemed to be an offer of a free pizza, so if you took and consumed the pizza you did so with a colorable claim of right and without fraud. Perhaps you misunderstood, but it is not a crime to misunderstand another person's intent. They could sue you for the cost of the pizza (assuming that you took it and did not pay), in which case the question would be whether whatever they said to you could reasonably be interpreted as an offer of a free pizza (if not, pay for the pizza). As an advertising stunt, this would not be unusual. However, if they fix the pizza but then demand money before handing over the pizza, you now know that you have no right to the pizza (if you abscond with the pizza in that circumstance, it would be theft). You may of course pay for the pizza, but you can also not pay and not take the pizza. Again, they could sue you, and in this case your defense would be that there was no contract (no agreement). An important question would be how reasonable it is to believe that you were offered a free pizza. People are offered "free" steak dinners all the time (at the cost of sitting through a sales pitch), so that is a reasonable belief. If a Lexus yacht salesman appears to be offering you a free $5M yacht, it is not reasonable to think that this is an ordinary advertising stunt, if you're not a celebrity.
I've been wondering if it is possible to hire / create a company with someone who would open a restaurant in my place and manage it according to my guidelines. Yes, of course. You can do it just like you described: Create a company, hire employees, (let them) open the restaurant. You, as the owner of the company, could set up whatever guidelines you have in mind, and your employees would be bound by them (limited only by general laws, such as on health and safety). Some caveats, however: You will need money to set this up - for buying / renting space for the restaurant, for paying your employees, obtaining supplies, initial marketing etc. It may take a while until the restaurant earns money (if ever), and you'll need money in the mean time. Someone will need to manage, that is make decisions. You can do that yourself, but then you will work for the restaurant (which you write you do not want to do). Or you can hire someone to do it for you, but that will cost more (in salary), plus you will have to find someone you can trust. That's a tradeoff for you to make. I guess it'd be like an intellectual property. That depends, but usually there will be little in terms of intellectual property. If you have a unique idea for the restaurant, you could patent it, but there are many restrictions on what you can protect, and ways around it, plus this also costs money (a lot if you need a lawyer's advice). Apart from that, you can register a trademark for the restaurant, but that only protects the name / logo, not any ideas. Finally, some of your ideas might be considered trade secrets, but again the protection is limited. In general, there is no blanket "idea protection". If you have a good idea for a restaurant, in most cases other restaurants will be able to copy them, possibly with slight changes - take that into account.
What &quot;reasonable accommodation&quot; were you requesting? That they lower the bar of determining your ability to pay your bills on time? I don't think that will qualify. A business setting a minimum bar for financial viability isn't a burden tied to a handicap. It's one thing to request a ramp, contracts in braille, etc., but it's another thing to request that they accept a highly-probable financial risk. What would you expect of them the next time &quot;life&quot; got in the way and you couldn't pay your rent? Another accommodation? I think what they were saying is that since you didn't pass the financial background check, and as such were not accepted as a resident, you aren't in a position to make an accommodation request.
Since you asked two questions: No and No Does a company’s T&amp;C or their house rules supersede law No and is asking private health status (including the request to wear a mask) an offence? No A company cannot require you to do things that are against the law but they can require you to do things that go further than the legal minimum. The UK and Spanish governments do not require you to wear a mask but they do not prohibit private organisations (like airlines) for making it a requirement to access their facilities. The law requires that they make reasonable accommodation for people with disabilities. But you don’t have a disability, you just can’t sleep with a mask on. If you had a disability you would have no trouble in getting a letter from your doctor to that effect. The contract requires them to take you from the UK to Spain: they don’t have to enable you to sleep. If you read the T&amp;C, you will find that they can refuse to carry you if, in their reasonable opinion, you pose a hazard to the aircraft or the people aboard it.
If a business literally has an &quot;exact change only&quot; policy, that can't be enforced in post-pay situations. But if they have a &quot;you are free to overpay, but we won't give you change back&quot;, that's different, especially if it's communicated from the beginning. If they tell you they don't give change, then you're taking their goods/services implicitly agreeing to their terms.