Tips bill is dead for the 2013 Legislative session

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A bill that would legalize the practice of tip sharing has failed after a conference committee of House and Senate members could not reach agreement on the bill.  Sponsor Ruth Ann Petroff of Jackson says lawmakers also heard a lot of negative feedback on the bill, so conference committee members agreed to drop it for the year.

“There were some reports that we were pooling tips, throwing all the tips into one big pot and allowing them to be split up between employees which certainly was not the case.  We were just trying to allow employers the chance to be able to manage tips in a way that provided fair taxation to all of the employees and fair distribution to all of the employees involved in service,” says Petroff.

She says some of the tip sharing that currently exists in Wyoming ends up hurting employees and she says the bill would have fixed that.  She says more education and feedback is necessary before she tries to bring the bill back.