That automatic gratuity that gets tacked on to your bill when dining with a large group may soon be a thing of the past.
Darden Restaurants, the Florida-based company that owns chain restaurants such as Olive Garden, Red Lobster and LongHorn Steakhouse, is considering dropping the practice of adding an 18 percent gratuity for tables of eight or more, according to the Orlando Sentinel.
Darden is considering making the change because of new IRS rules that will treat automatic gratuities as wages, and therefore increase the payroll tax for the restaurants, according to the newspaper.
Most servers are fans of automatic tipping because the gratuity often gets lost when diners split the bill.
The company has already dropped the practice at 100 restaurants, and will decide by the end of the year whether to expand it to all of its eateries.
Experts say many other restaurants may follow suit.
