Federal Law under FLSA mandates that a tipped employee must meet the minimum wage requirement at $5.85/hr.

My question is I take 18% of my employees total tips at the end of the night and allocate a percentage to the bus boys and the cooks. The total taken is at 3% of total sales for each waiter assuming they received 15%. I pay them $2.50/per hour and if you add on the remaining 82% that the waiters keep, that adds up to more than $5.85/hr. In fact, they make well over the min. wage per hour. Their total hourly is in the $10/hr. They claim that if I take a percentage out of their tip to give to the bus boys and kitchen staff, I must pay them minimum wage of $5.85/hour plus the percentage of their tips or I must pay them $2.50/hr and they get to keep all of their tips and does not need to share their tips?   Any legality in that claim. I was just served papers this week. I need to know if its something I can fight in court and if the claim is accurate????

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Austin, Texas

Already Tried:
called an attorney friend in Houston and he advise that it would be more cost effective to hire an attorney in Austin. I spoke with many advisors and they are all giving me different information.