Restaurants Which Include a Tip on Your Bill

Here's a brief article about "tipping" in American restaurants.  Please be careful.

A "tip" is supposed to be a voluntary act from a restaurant customer to show appreciation to a good waiter or waitress.  Many Americans, however, are accustomed to leaving a 15% tip after a meal regardless of how good the service was by the waiter/waitress.

Some American restaurants, however, now seem to be trying to trick or deceive customers by placing a tip on the bill when the bill is presented to the customer.  Indeed, in New York City, it is common practice for waiters and restaurants to place tips on a bill if they can determine that the customers are foreigners.

Many times the customer does not realize this and adds an "extra" tip to the money given to the waiter. So the customer is mistakenly giving the waiter two tips.

Why is there tipping in the USA?  Basically, restaurants are too cheap and irresponsible to pay their waitstaff a living wage.  They put the burden on the customer.  The restaurant industry in America is probably one of the shadiest (dishonest) in the country. 

For instance, restaurants regularly hire illegal immigrants (paying them substandard salaries - and not fulfilling their tax obligations to the government).  The restaurant industry claims that "tipping" and hiring illegals is necessary for their very survival and necessary to keep restaurant bills low.  Yet, these same restaurants make huge profits by not paying their workers what they should be paid and by under-paying illegals.

In a further development, it used to be that a good tip was 15% of the total bill; now many restaurants are asking for 18% for their waiters.

Here's an article in which a man was upset that an 18% tip was included on his bill. 

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/pastor-tip-receipt-155914258.html

1)  How do you feel about tipping?  This practice does not occur in Europe or Asia and restaurants there make profits. 

2)  Do you think it is right for a restaurant to place an automatic tip on a receipt?