Qualified Tips
All qualified occupations

IRS Personal Services (TTOC)

Do funeral attendants qualify for the No Tax on Tips deduction?

Funeral attendants — the staff who assist at services, drive the family car, serve as pallbearers-for-hire, and manage graveside logistics — appear on the IRS Treasury Tipped Occupation Code list. Tipping here is quiet and occasion-driven: a family member pressing folded bills into an attendant's hand after a service handled with dignity. It can feel awkward to think of this as 'tip income,' but the IRS treats it exactly like any other voluntary tip — and it qualifies for the deduction.

Short answer

Yes. Funeral attendants are on the IRS TTOC list for tip-customary roles. Voluntary appreciation tips from families qualify for the federal No Tax on Tips deduction, up to $25,000 per year. Funeral-home fees, service charges on the family's invoice, and your wages never qualify — only the voluntary extra a family member personally hands you.

How much could you save?

Typical tip income for funeral attendants.

Funeral attendant tip income is modest: most report $200-$1,500/year. Attendants at high-volume funeral homes, limousine drivers for funeral processions, and staff in communities with strong tipping customs see the upper end. It is likely the smallest qualified-tip total of any TTOC trade — but for W-2 attendants it takes one minute a week to log.

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For funeral attendants specifically

What counts as a qualified tip — and what doesn't.

✓ Qualifies

  • Cash a family member voluntarily hands you after a service
  • Voluntary tips to the family-car/limousine driver
  • Appreciation tips at graveside services
  • Tips from families at memorial receptions you staffed

✗ Does not qualify

  • Funeral-home service fees on the family's invoice
  • 'Staff gratuity' line items on funeral contracts (mandatory service charges)
  • Your hourly wages or per-service pay
  • Honoraria paid to clergy that pass through your hands
  • Flowers, food, or non-monetary thanks from families

A worked example

Walter, a real-world funeral attendant.

Walter is a part-time funeral attendant and procession driver, W-2, married filing jointly, MAGI $74,000. For the tax year, she logged $900 in qualified tips for the year. She sits in the 12% federal marginal bracket.

  • Deduction allowed: Full $900 deduction
  • Estimated savings: About $108 off federal income tax

This is an illustrative example, not a guarantee. Your actual savings depend on your filing status, total income, state, and other deductions.

Questions specific to funeral attendants

What other funeral attendants ask.

A widow pressed $50 into my hand after the service. It feels wrong to call that a tip. Do I report it?

Legally it is a voluntary tip — income to report, and §224-deductible once reported. The law does not distinguish by occasion. Log it with the same dignity you did the work: date and amount, nothing more needed.

The funeral contract includes a "staff appreciation" charge. My share?

Not qualified. A charge on the contract is mandatory at source — a service charge, whatever the label. Only money a family member personally and voluntarily hands you qualifies.

I drive the family car. Families tip me more than the chapel staff. Same rules?

Yes — procession and family-car drivers are tip-customary funeral roles. Voluntary tips qualify; log per service.

Is a few hundred dollars a year worth the paperwork?

The 'paperwork' is one log line per tip. At $900/year that is roughly $108-200 back depending on bracket. Small, but it is the same ten-second habit every tipped worker on this list should have — and it is honest reporting either way.

Related occupations

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