Again, I would rather just have a service charge or schedule of charges included in my stay or dues rather than carry around tons of $1 and $5 bills.
Wouldn't it just be easier if say you had the option to just add on $10 or whatever when you check in and add it to your bill upon checkout, then you don't have to worry about it?
However, that will never happen because then it would be reported as taxable income whereas the $1's and $5's people are leaving are most likely not reporting it as income, therefore it becomes tax-free income.
Part of the push for making wait staff full pay per hour instead of $2.13 + tip or whatever it is in XYZ state is because at the lower level of hourly pay, staff is only required to report up to a certain amount as income if it is considered a "tipped" position. I believe when I waited tables, that was around 7% of sales (that may be different now as that was several years ago, and that may have been specific to the state I lived in at the time). The upshot was that any non-credit card (which, of course is traceable) tipped amount received over that was essentially not taxed. This is why you see such pushback from those that wait tables in not wanting to go to a paid-per-hour over tips, they would owe much more potentially in taxes.
Housekeeping at WDW is specifically defined in the contract as a non-tipped position (not making any judgement about whether people tip or not, just stating what's in their contract). This means that any $$ that they receive in tips (which is almost certainly cash) is non-taxable.
Unfortunately, this will be why my solution above would never be implemented, even though it would be so much easier on the member.
If any of you have ever sailed with Virgin Voyages, they've gone the route where they pay their crew at a rate that is consistent with what one would expect to make on another line when base pay + tips are factored in. This makes the upfront cost of the cruise a bit more, but you are not expected to tip anywhere on the ship. Yes, this also means that if you purchase a $10 drink, it actually cost you $10, not $11.80 ($10 + 18% tip) as the staff already have the tip amount factored into their contracted pay amount (side note: this doesn't stop people from trying to tip, like Pavlov's dog, we are conditioned in the US to think that we must do it, even when we know it is already accounted for, but I digress...). One of my least favorite experiences on
DCL, for instance was on the inaugural sailing of the Disney Wish, where I wanted the Inaugural Wish Sailing Cooler souvenir, which was $25. Needless to say, I got to pay an extra $4.50 (18% of $25) for the privilege of the crew member taking the cooler out of a box and handing it to me...
