Form 4070 Monthly Tip Report Generator

What goes on each line of Form 4070

The old form had four lines, and payroll systems that replaced it still ask for the same four figures. Take a server who finished September with $400 in cash tips, $900 in card tips, $150 received from the bar pool, and $300 tipped out to bussers and hosts.

• Line 1, cash tips received: $550. That is the $400 in cash plus the $150 the bar pool handed over. Checks written to you count here as well.
• Line 2, credit and debit card tips received: $900. Gift-card and mobile-app tips paid out to you belong on this line too.
• Line 3, tips paid out: $300, the amount passed to other employees.
• Line 4, net tips: $1,150. Add lines 1 and 2 ($1,450), then subtract line 3.

The pool is where most people slip, because it cuts both ways. Pub. 531 tells you to report only the tips you receive and keep, so money you pass to a coworker comes off on Line 3, while money a coworker passes to you goes on Line 1. Form 4070A mirrored this: column (a) covered tips received from customers and from other employees, column (c) covered tips paid out, and column (d) wanted the names of everyone you tipped out. Keep those names, because Line 3 is the figure an auditor probes first.

Form 4070 is historical: what you give your employer now

Beginning in 2024 the IRS made Form 4070 and Form 4070A historical and declared Publication 1244 obsolete. Nothing about your duty changed. IRC Section 6053(a) still requires a written or electronic statement to your employer each month, and you still have to keep a daily tip record. Pub. 531 (Rev. December 2024) now spells out what the statement must contain instead of pointing at a printed form.

Six elements have to be there: your name, address, and Social Security number; your employer's name and address plus the establishment name; the month or shorter period the tips were received; the total tips required to be reported for that period; your signature; and the date. Most employers now collect all of it through the POS or a payroll portal, which is fine. Keep your own signed copy either way, because the record you hold is what settles a dispute later. Our guide to reporting tips to your employer walks through the statement field by field.

When your monthly tip report is due

Give the report to your employer by the 10th of the next month. If the 10th lands on a Saturday, Sunday, or legal holiday, you have until the next day that is none of those. September 2026 is the one that catches people out: October 10 is a Saturday, October 11 is a Sunday, and October 12 is Columbus Day, so the report is due Tuesday, October 13, 2026. Columbus Day is the holiday that lands on the 10th most often, because the second Monday in October always falls between the 8th and the 14th. Veterans Day can do it too: when November 11 is a Saturday the holiday is observed on Friday, November 10, which is what pushes October 2028 tips out to Monday, November 13, 2028.

December tips are the ones people forget: they are due on January 10 of the following year, in the middle of holiday closeouts and W-2 season. If your employment ends partway through a month, Pub. 531 lets you hand in the report when the job ends rather than waiting for the 10th, which is the cleaner move when you are unlikely to see that manager again.

The $20 threshold and the cost of skipping the report

The test runs on Line 4, the net amount you are required to report, and it runs per employer. Hit $20 or more from one job in a calendar month and the statement is due. Come in under $20 and no statement goes to that employer, though the tips are still taxable income on your return and the daily record is still required. Two tipped jobs get tested separately, never combined.

Skipping the report starts a chain that costs real money. Your employer cannot withhold on tips it never heard about, so the Social Security and Medicare tax lands on you at filing time through Form 4137. On top of that tax, IRC Section 6652(b) allows a penalty of 50% of the Social Security, Medicare, and Additional Medicare tax owed on the unreported tips, unless you attach a written statement showing reasonable cause and not willful neglect. The quieter cost is your earnings record: unreported tips lower the wages credited to your Social Security account, which trims the benefit you collect decades later.

The whole thing hinges on a daily record you actually keep. Log cash, card tips, pool receipts, and tip-outs the night they happen and the monthly statement takes two minutes. Reconstruct a month from memory in February and it takes an evening. The daily tip log guide covers what the old Form 4070A captured and what an auditor looks for. Server44 keeps that record on your phone so the numbers are ready when the 10th comes around.