Don't get me wrong but Netherlands is the capital of tax evasion in Europe. Global corporations pay literally no tax in NL for any digital services sold within EU, and NL benefits from global countries having their headquarters and main investments in your country. This is one of the important drivers of your economy. Your welfare is basically based on stealing from others ;-). I hope as a responsible individual you will take personal initiative electing a government that will change this.
Improper wording. Netherlands is a country where a lot of tax ELUSION occurs. If you search for tax EVASION, better to watch here in Italy.
Elusion is a way of paying little tax in a fully legal manner, thanks to favourable tax laws in a country, which is called a "fiscal paradise". Many countries worldwide compete in this field, Netherlands is not alone, here in Europe we also have Belgium and Ireland, for example. As the EU community never reached an agreement about aligning the tax policies among participating countries, this is something which must be accepted here in Europe.
On the other side, however, it appears that also in the US some states apply different tax policies than others.
All this applies mostly to large companies. Individual income tax, instead, is enforced quite strictly almost everywhere here in Europe.
As I already explained, what disturbs mostly Europeans when travelling to US is not the fact that service has to be paid separately from the food or drinks being purchased. This is perfectly acceptable.
But we are used to find it listed on the bill, so that it is fiscally traceable, and hence fully reimbursable from the employer. Having to hand some money, possibly by cash, without any tax-deductible receipt, instead, is highly disturbing, because it means that this money will NOT be reimbursed, nor can be exposed as an expense in a tax declaration.
This money given for tips is "lost". Why should I get an economic damage from this strange habit? On the other hand, the idea of leaving the worker unpaid is also quite disturbing: each worker should be paid fairly, I am not happy with the idea of giving no tip for avoiding my personal economic damage, it looks selfish to me. So there is a need for making the tip payment fully traceable, which would make it acceptable also for people coming from other countries.
However I also have this doubt: how can Americans be reimbursed for the tips paid when travelling for work, or how can these expenses be deducted from the income before paying taxes, if no fiscally-traceable receipt is produced? Do not you have the same problems that an untraceable payment causes to Europeans?
