What is a Normal Tip for an Instructor at a Sailing Course

[BandB]

Originally Posted by Cottontop

I suspect the IRS, and other governmental agencies, considers the people providing instruction at a sailing school to be employees, no matter what the school may call them, or what they consider themselves to be. Why do they, or does the school, want them to be "contractors"? Tax avoidance. Or overtime avoidance. Or benefits avoidance. Or ACA avoidance.

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In this specific case it would be because they're not full time and they often have other jobs, do other work. If there are no classes, they have no work. It does shift some payroll tax obligations from the school to the instructor and they don't have to provide benefits.

The IRS, state unemployment and other entities do examine this carefully. Many of these instructors would pass the examination as contractors. Then it becomes a matter of whether the school has handled all the paperwork correctly.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by Cottontop

As to tips, I see it spreading outside the US, but aimed at people from the US. I think it's bad business. Why put your customers in the awkward position of trying to figure out how much to pay your employees. You can see the effect in this thread; people looking for alternatives.

The expansion of tipping is part of the larger trend of business who want to get out of the business of having employees. It’s a way to offload the cost of their workers directly onto the customers, and artificially keeping their advertised prices low. It’s a terrible model for everyone except the business owners (although some workers can make a killing in this world).

I’ve taken a number of sailing courses over the years. So has my spouse. And I am personally aware of many other people who have taken courses. NONE of these situations included a norm of tipping the instructor. This is a relatively new phenomena, and passing it off as “standard practice” is obfuscating the truth.

Of course, if we all just roll over and follow this new practice, it will become standard. There are lots of schools out there who don’t price their products in this way. Use them, and tell the others why you are choosing someone else. This is how businesses listen to the market.