You theoretically could make the cash tips just disappear. The computer where I work guesses based on a rolling average of your card tips and it’s usually pretty close. Which suggests to me that if anyone went snooping they could key in to the statistical anomaly of your curiously low cash tips rather easily. At the end of the day you’re rolling the dice.

Personally I do report, partially because I don’t want to piss off the IRS if they ever do take an interest in me but mostly because I don’t qualify for housing assistance even without reporting them and nobody will rent to me unless I do report them because, get this, I don’t earn an extra $3 for every $1 the rent goes up, especially not in wages. I am actually kind of jealous of apparently everyone else in the industry who somehow get approved for apartments despite making half of what they’re supposed to on paper