Thirty seconds after your shift. A signed tip report at month’s end.
The IRS expects tipped workers to keep a daily record of tips — cash and card tips received, tips paid out to the busser or barback, and who you paid them to. That record is Form 4070A, and the monthly statement you hand your employer is Form 4070 (both in Publication 1244). Paper booklets get lost, and reconstructing a month of tips from memory in January is how numbers end up wrong on a W-2. This helper keeps the same record on your phone: log the day in about 30 seconds, and the monthly totals — and the printable statement — build themselves.
100% client-side — your tips never leave this browser. No uploads, no accounts, no servers. Export a JSON backup and keep it with your tax return.
Not tax advice, and this files nothing. This is a recordkeeping aid built from public IRS materials (Publications 1244 and 531). The monthly statement is in the layout of Form 4070, not an official IRS form — your employer may also have its own reporting system. Verify the rules against irs.gov and use a tax professional for anything unusual.
1 Your details (printed on the monthly statement)
Never type a full SSN into any website — including this one. This field physically keeps only the last 4 digits (if you paste more, the rest is discarded immediately), and the printed statement masks them as XXX-XX-1234. Publication 531’s signed statement asks for your SSN; many workers write it on the paper copy by hand instead.
2 Log a day always free
One entry per shift, in the Form 4070A format. Tips you received from other employees (your share of a pool) count as received — add them to cash or card. Automatic service charges are wages, not tips — leave them out.
Net for this day: $0.00
3 Month totals always free
| Date | Cash | Card | Paid out | Paid to | Net | Note |
|---|
4 Monthly report for your employer
Generates a signed statement for the month selected in step 3, in the layout of Form 4070 — employee and employer details, the four tip lines, your daily record for the month, and a signature line. Print it, sign it, hand it in by the due date in step 3.
5 Year at a glance & W-2 check always free
| Month | Cash | Card | Paid out | Net tips | Employer report |
|---|
The year pack prints the annual table, the W-2 reconciliation, and the recordkeeping notes — the folder to keep with that year’s return.
6 Backup & restore
Everything lives in this browser’s local storage. Export a backup before switching phones or clearing browser data — the file is also your proof copy for the year. Working two jobs? Reports are per employer and the $20 test is per employer, so keep one backup file per job and import the one you need.
Questions, answered from the IRS publications
What exactly do I have to report to my employer, and when?
If your tips from one job total $20 or more in a month, you must give your employer a written (or electronic) report by the 10th day of the next month — if the 10th is a weekend or legal holiday, the next business day. The statement must be signed and show your name, address, and SSN; your employer’s name and address; the month covered; and the total tips received. Form 4070 (in Publication 1244) is the IRS’s ready-made version of that statement; this tool prints the same thing. Months under $20 need no report — but the income is still taxable on your return. verify Publication 531, “Reporting Tips to Your Employer.”
I tip out the busser and barback. What do I report?
Only what you receive and keep. Publication 531: if you split or pool tips, don’t report the part you pass on to other employees — and do report tips other employees pass to you. That is exactly Form 4070’s arithmetic: cash (line 1) + card (line 2) − tips paid out (line 3) = net tips (line 4). The daily record still lists what you paid out and to whom — their names are part of the record, and the amount they receive is their tip income to log.
Are automatic service charges tips?
No. A service charge the house adds to the bill and pays out to you is wages, not a tip (Publication 531), because the customer didn’t choose it freely. Don’t log service charges here — they belong on your pay stub, and your employer reports them.
What about noncash tips — tickets, passes, a bottle of wine?
They are taxable income on your return, but they are not reported to your employer and don’t belong in these totals. Keep a separate dated note of what you received and its value for tax time.
My W-2 has “allocated tips” in box 8. What is that?
Large food and beverage establishments (generally more than 10 employees) file Form 8027 and, if reported tips fall short of 8% of gross receipts, allocate the difference to employees. Allocated tips appear in W-2 box 8 — they are not in box 1 wages, but they are taxable, and you figure any extra social security/Medicare tax on them with Form 4137. If your daily record shows you actually received less, that record is your evidence. verify Publication 531, “Allocated Tips.”
How long should I keep these records?
Publication 1244’s wording: keep your tip records for as long as the information on them may be needed in the administration of any Internal Revenue law. In practice, keep them at least 3 years after filing that year’s return — longer if you can. The JSON backup plus the printed year pack makes this painless.
I forgot a month. What now?
Tips you didn’t report to your employer still go on your tax return: you figure the social security and Medicare tax on them with Form 4137. Publication 531 also notes a possible penalty — 50% of the social security and Medicare taxes due on unreported tips — unless you had reasonable cause. If this is you, a short conversation with a tax professional is worth more than any website, including this one.
Is this the official IRS form? Is this tax advice?
Neither. This is a recordkeeping aid: the daily record follows Form 4070A’s fields and the monthly statement follows Form 4070’s layout, both from Publication 1244, but nothing here is an IRS form and nothing is filed or submitted anywhere. Your employer’s own reporting system, if it has one, is what you should use — this log still backs it up.