I'm not from the US, so I could be off... but don't you add sales tax on top of the price of stuff (VAT is included in the tag price in the UK)? You wouldn't be able to buy a shirt if you couldn't afford to pay the sales tax, so I guess it should be the same as tipping. If you can't factor in a tip, then you probably shouldn't go somewhere that doesn't pay its workers a fair wage.
It's a shitty system but you don't change it by feeding into it, and you definitely won't change it by essentially screwing over your server.
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