ITBIS y Ley

ITBIS is value added tax. Much the same as sales tax in the US. Ley is law and is the service tax added for service in resturants. It is the custom to add an additional tip if the service was good

LEY is the same thing as a gratuity in english, it's a mandatory 10% tip built in to the bill, and is a big part of the reason why restaurant service in the DR sucks - they get tipped no matter what. Only Gringos tip on top of that, unless you consider leaving the coins and bills that are so sweaty you don't want to touch them on the table tipping.

Ley means Law not Gratuity. The 10% service charge is normally used to augment the low salaries that restaurant staff are paid. Sometimes it can be used as the only base for the salaries and split among the staff. This is usually the case in a high volume restaurant. Also, it is my understanding that the wait staff can opt to be paid a higher base salary instead of only working for the 10% and that's when the 10% is used to augment a salary. This is the case in many smaller restaurants, my own included. The government's intention of this "tax" is to provide a source for salaries, above and beyond normal restaurant proceeds.

To equate slow service with this required service fee is ludicrous. Everything, including restaurant service, is just slow here, period. And to not consider a tip above and beyond the 10% when good service is rendered is just being cheap. In the states a tip of 15 to 20% is normal, even for average service so our 10% isn't so much after all.

Here the combined 10% service and the 12% ITBIS/Sales tax equals 22% added to the bill. In much of the US and other countries, when you add local and state taxes and the 15 to 20% tip, you exceed our 22%. And finally when you consider the total price of the meal, eating out in the DR is really not that expensive after all.

Well I've worked as a waiter before and I would certainly never expect to be tipped for the kind of service I get here.

I tipped anyway for the first few years I lived here and generally found that as a result I got worse service, not better service. I guess people thought I was their "friend" now since I gave away free money and would be willing to wait even longer for things, and "understand" if nobody bothered to get the order right.

Of course in tourist areas things are very different but I am talking about the rest of the DR where staff and customers are primarily Dominican.

I've run bars and restaurants here, and I happen to know that even though it says "ley" (law) on the receipt, it is referred to by waitstaff and management as "propinas" (tips) and is supposed to be devided up among the service staff. I've also noticed that Dominicans almost NEVER tip above the "LEY" unless they are planning to try to date the waitress. Unlike the US where waitstaff can be paid half of the minimum wage (except in California) and depend on tips for the other half, waitstaff here do make at least the minimum wage, and in many cases more.

I am firmly of the opinion that this is a perfect example of how well-meaning socialistic systems actually turn out to be bad for everybody.

If you have a restaurant you should know all about double accounting and how most restaurant owners only devide up about 30% of the money they take in as "ley" among the employees and keep the rest. If they devided it all up, it would be harder to hide the fact that they report less than half of their sales to the government so they don't get taxed for it.

The customer has no way to passively express a lack of satisfaction, since the law requires him to tip at least 10%, and the individual employees have no motivation to work well and pleae the customers, since the tips get devided up between everybody, often with lazy managers taking the lion's share off of the top and the janitors and dishwashers being awarded a share of the little that's left, along with the waiters who get so little of tips that were meant for them that they see no connection between good service and money.

Also employees have no motivation or tendency to rise in an establishment, the classic model where a young person would start out washing dishes and then move up to busboy, waiter, and finally manager simply does not happen.