Is it time to boycott cash tips to get Tauck to join the modern era?
I have a trip coming up soon with my daughter and SIL, both millennials. I reminded them not to forget cash for tips. Of course they don't like this idea and want to use venmo, paypal, etc. I tend to agree that carrying around cash is silly in the modern era. What can we do to pressure Tauck into joining the modern world - such as providing an online portal for tips?
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Call and speak to Tauck. Good luck!!
Merely my opinion, but I do not think it is appropriate to expect Tauck to develop and implement a tipping “portal.” The logistics alone can be very cost prohibitive. As a controller for a large firm, I have direct experience with major accounting changes. Feasibility studies, trial runs, implementation and testing do not come without significant cash outlays. There are also government reporting issues to contend with. Again, my opinion.
Assuming there is an ATM at the last stop of your trip, couldn't your daughter/SIL just get cash from the ATM prior to giving it out as a tip. That eliminates the carrying the cash problem.
As soon as you're able, ask the TD if s/he can accept tips electronically.
I doubt if the TDs want a Tauck tip portal. Today, they receive cash and decide how much to claim for tax purposes. A Tauck Tip Portal would document how much they received.
Tours I mostly take with Tauck are nowhere near ATM machines. Being originally from another country, I still don’t understand the obsession with tipping anybody and everybody. But then I do it like everyone else in the US. I do notice that some of my most wealthy friends are quite stingy. On our last tour, several of the people were not going to give as much as the recommended amount of tip.
Millennials' don't call people
They text or email. I have a long-standing joke with my daughter about "calling HR" when she has a work issue.
Restaurants have figured it out...
New slogan - No green books; no greenbacks
As an aside, I've been on e a few trips where TDs said they could accept tips electronically via the popular payment portals.
Our next land tour is Scandinavia where there are 3 different currencies -- none of which are anything I'd want to keep handy like Euros and are countries that a pretty much cash free. They're going to get USD unless they offer a better way to do it.
How about the next logical step-eliminate tips altogether? Pay your guides and drivers an equitable salary and be done with it. Rick Steves does that and he has excellent people working for him with a very high retention rate and huge numbers of repeat customers. When you take his tours not only don’t you tip, the guides and drivers are prohibited from accepting any gratuity. Often the group will get together and colllect money and purchase a small goodbye gift. But that’s it. We are recent Tauck converts but this tipping thing is a real drag.
I’m with you Folsomdoc, pay the TD’s more money, put back in more included meals and actual touring and make the tours even more expensive. At least we will all be paying the same amount of money for a tour.
On one Tauck tour, I was talking with the TD about small groups compared to standard sized groups. She preferred the standard sized groups because she got more in tips.
She said Tauck used to pay more for a TD to take a small group but that stopped about a year ago. I wonder how Tauck handes those ultra small tours. Seems that they'd have to pay a bonus to the TD to take one of them.
Mike, I reported this change last year. They no longer get a bonus for leading small group tours, which is why the senior tour directors now prefer to lead the classic size groups.
The title of the first post in this thread floats the idea of boycotting cash tips, i.e.not tipping. This is a seriously bad idea and unfair to the TDs. By all means, feel free to suggest alternatives, like other payment means or tip inclusive pricing. Put it on your hope and trust card or write a letter. Until and unless things change, you should continue to give the TDs the compensation they work so hard for,
Well said, Ken from Vegas. Thank you.
BKMD did not say that, people just don’t want to carry around hundreds of dollars in cash for a TD tip, they want another non cash way. I myself don’t want to Venmo, A Tauck secure way of tipping on their website for a specified tour director would be great. As far as not paying your taxes, that’s fraud.
British is correct. The issue is cash, not tipping itself. Re ATMs, there are third world countries where finding an ATM, or one that seems secure, may be problematic.
The Tauck website is already set up for secure payments. It wouldn't be so difficult to have an area for tips. Or, as was already suggested above, include it in the trip payment.
I have talked with TD’s about tips. They prefer cash. If you don’t have cash they would probably accept a bag of marbles instead of ‘nothing’. I use dollars or euros. They know how to exchange them. I put the tips in an envelope before I ever leave home. The envelope lives with my passport. That helps me pay attention to where they both are located. A friend’s son who is a senior Air Force officer retired took his family to Costa Rica recently. They had extra time on the way to the airport returning home so they went to the beach with their luggage and rental car. When they got done swimming they had ‘a rental car’. No luggage, no passports, no credit cards, … one cell phone. The embassy did not open until Monday and this was Saturday. Carrying and caring for cash is really no more difficult than carrying and caring for a passport. I can assure you that you would rather lose your cash than your passport.
It's not fraud, it's tax evasion, and it's a crime. However, the underground ecomony is alive and well. It's estimated to be over $2 trillion in the US each year. There are reports that many business that deal primarily in cash are not reporting all of it. TDs get a lot of cash and it's "possible" that some of them don't report all of it.
Many of the TDs don’t live in the U.S. Even those that do are exempt from U.S. taxes if they stay out of the country for long enough. I’ve forgotten how many days, and how much is exempt. I worked in Saudi Arabia for a couple years and a lot of the guys just stayed out of the country to avoid the taxes. *
I was under the understanding that wherever you live, Americans have to pay their taxes, which is different than most other countries.
Just noted from the IRS website
Yes, if you are a U.S. citizen or a resident alien living outside the United States, your worldwide income is subject to U.S. income tax, regardless of where you live. However, you may qualify for certain foreign earned income exclusions and/or foreign income tax credits. Visit Publication 54, Tax Guide for U.S. Citizens and Resident Aliens Abroad, for additional information.
I have no idea what the current law is regarding taxes. When I was with Saudia you did not have to pay taxes on ‘foreign’ income if you did not return to the U.S. for a rather large number of days. It was less than a year.
For the second time this thread, I'll say British is correct.
Unless you officially renounce your American citizenship, you have to pay American taxes.
You beat me to it, Sealord. I agree that safeguarding my cash when traveling is no different—and just as easy—as safeguarding my passports and credit cards.
What is the maximum foreign income exclusion in the US?
For tax year 2024, the maximum exclusion is $126,500 per person. If two individuals are married, and both work abroad and meet either the bona fide residence test or the physical presence test, each one can choose the foreign earned income exclusion. Together, they can exclude as much as $253,000 for the 2024 tax year.
Yes and No, you will pay taxes in that country instead, which are probably less in some countries, but not in many more, such as the UK. The US taxes are way lower for us than in the UK for instance.
Carrying and caring for cash is really no more difficult than carrying and caring for a passport.
Could not disagree more . A passport is.a single relatively small extremely valuable document. When I travel it’s in a money belt under my clothes. I don’t love that but I know where it is at all times. Along with it I usually have the cash equivalent of $100 in local currency and a single credit card I use for travel. If I had to keep envelopes of cash in there it would be a no go. Since we almost always combine independent travel with our tours, having to carry the amount of cash needed for Tauck tips is unsafe and difficult if our independent travel precedes our tours. As far as tax evasion-nobody on this forum was born yesterday. You can bet some cash is not reported. Tauck has to know that. So they are complicit (OK Tauck defenders, get ready to pounce!!)
Yes British. And in the case of Saudi Arabia I made, you can make that your tax home and they have no personal income tax. They have a VAT tax. The physical presence test I looked up and you simply must stay out of the US for 330 days, and you can take the exemptions listed. You can travel anywhere you want except to the US. There are many countries that don’t have personal income taxes … Florida is one of them. (;-). You still must file a tax return, and pay taxes on US income, but you get the substantial listed exemption on foreign income if you stay out for 330 days or more.
I must add a comment about cash. Some here are worried about losing cash or having it stolen so they want to rely on credit cards and not carry cash. What happens if you lose your credit cards and you have no cash. Or, what has happened to me twice, the credit card company locked my credit card when they saw they charge coming from outside the country even though I had provided them with my itinerary. I have provided cash to cashless travelers a couple times on Tauck trips. In my view traveling abroad without significant cash in your wallet is simply not very smart.
Whatever floats your boat. Was a time I relied on periodic stops at ATM’s and used cash for nearly everything except hotels. Times have changed and I am carrying the same 150 or so Euro back and forth and not using it. Europe is really becoming cashless even for very small purchases. As for losing a credit card-yes it happens but your liability is $50. Lose that “significant” cash…well it’s gone. We carry three credit cards and a debit card. One credit card is in my money belt and that’s the one I use almost exclusively. If I’m unlucky enough to lose it I’ve got another in the safe. My wife has a third in her money belt. The debit card is tied to a separate checking account with a small balance and, these days, rarely sees the light of day when traveling. But, everybody has their comfort level. While I can see some being more accustomed to using cash that is different than carrying a relatively large amount for the entire trip only using it for gratuity’s at the end. That I really don’t like.
On a recent tour, not with Tauck, it was three weeks long, so we needed a large cash tip. When someone on the tour expressed concern about carrying all that cash, the TD in all seriousness said he would keep the money for them, not look in the envelope and then at the end of the tour, give it back. If they thought he was a poor TD, they could then take some money out before giving it back to him. How about that idea, would anyone want to do that?
I’m with Sealord. Wr carry cash and credit cards. As intelligent as we think we are, we’ve left a credit card in an ATM machine. Wd’ve lost one credit card too. All this is because we were in a hurry and didn’t think clearly. We’ve learned a lot since then. It happens. We had enough cash at the end of that trip to carry us. We’ve also lent funds to others under the same predicament.
Yes, this does occur when a credit card gets lost, and the same predicament would definitely occur, if a cell phone gets lost or stolen. There is no way to Venmo anything if that happens.
I’m currently in between trips in Europe, and we intentionally over-tipped our tour director for Tuscany/Umbria. She was wonderful and relatively new to Tauck.