Revenue helps write new Good Tronc Guide

A guide to help restaurateurs know where they stand on tronc schemes is to be made available from the end of this month.

The Good Tronc Guide is being produced by the Restaurant Association and the Inland Revenue, and is the first time the taxman has joined forces with the association.

The guide will be free to association members, and will offer guidance on the different practices on tips and service charges. It will be available to download electronically.

The move follows the Inland Revenue's decision to scrap plans to levy National Insurance contributions on all restaurant credit-card tips.

Following a review of the issue, the Revenue had wanted to make restaurants pay National Insurance on discretionary tips and service charges added to bills by the customer. The change would have covered all such voluntary service charges and gratuities, backdated as long as six years.

But strong opposition to the plan, led by the Restaurant Association, led to a climb-down by the Revenue. Chief executive Ian McKerracher welcomed the change of heart as "a victory for common sense and reason".

The association had feared that the plan would have put many restaurants out of business.