Above? Not so much.

A lot of wait staff seem content to push mis-information: "If you tip poorly, the IRS makes us pay tax on it anyway, i.e. we're having to pay to serve you!"

No, the IRS makes an estimate on how much tipped workers are paid. If you document and it's less, then you pay tax on that. But using the IRS as the big bad wolf to get more tips that you know damn sure you're not going to report, doesn't make me the most sympathetic.

I've seen wait staff say that they believe 20% should be a baseline, for bad service, 25 for "decent" and 30% for good service...