Massachusetts to tax ride-hailing apps, give the money to taxis
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Re: Massachusetts to tax ride-hailing apps, give the money to taxis
#2This is a pretty surreal move:
>The law says the money will help taxi businesses to adopt "new technologies and advanced service, safety and operational capabilities" and to support workforce development... [Larry Meister, manager of the Boston area's Independent Taxi Operator's Association] said the money could go toward improving a smartphone app his association has started using, or to other big needs.
I'm not an anti-regulation guy most of the time, but this doesn't even seem like regulation -- they're literally giving money to a fading industry because they are incapable of keeping up. I don't want to see cab drivers turn into homeless drifters, but this just seems wrong.
Making a more efficient competitor pay to help taxi companies make their service better? The whole reason these companies exist is because taxi companies have been utter garbage for years and got the government to elbow out competitors. Am I missing something? Surely the burden for "do things better and buy nicer equipment" falls on the taxi companies, not the other organizations that are embarrassing them.
Re: Massachusetts to tax ride-hailing apps, give the money to taxis
#3Well, things should be equal. Why should a taxi service have to perform a regular vehicle inspection and a an uber driver be exempt from it?
Either make the Uber driver go through regular inspections or cancel the regulation for the cabbies.
Re: Massachusetts to tax ride-hailing apps, give the money to taxis
#4Well, things should be equal. Why should a taxi service have to perform a regular vehicle inspection and a an uber driver be exempt from it? Either make the Uber driver go through regular inspections or cancel the regulation for the cabbies.
None of which has anything to do with this tax. This is directly using taxation to hand one business a market advantage over another business.
Re: Massachusetts to tax ride-hailing apps, give the money to taxis
#5Well, things should be equal. Why should a taxi service have to perform a regular vehicle inspection and a an uber driver be exempt from it? Either make the Uber driver go through regular inspections or cancel the regulation for the cabbies.
Making Uber drivers abide by the same standards would make sense.
This is using government authority to take money from one business and give it to another.
Re: Massachusetts to tax ride-hailing apps, give the money to taxis
#6This is a pretty surreal move: >The law says the money will help taxi businesses to adopt "new technologies and advanced service, safety and operational capabilities" and to support workforce development... [Larry Meister, manager of the Boston area's Independent Taxi Operator's Association] said the money could go toward improving a smartphone app his association has started using, or to other big needs. I'm not an…
Cab drivers don't become homeless drifters, they become your next lyft pick up.
And the quality of service of Lyft and Uber have gone down the more and more cab drivers become drivers.
It's starting to not feel like much of differentiation.
Re: Massachusetts to tax ride-hailing apps, give the money to taxis
#7As a lifelong resident of Massachusetts, color me unsurprised. This is a tangent but I've also spent some time in India, and a $1.50 Uber ride there would be about $10 in Massachusetts. That has to do with other factors though such as PPP, birth rates and age demographics, immigration policies, number of skilled vs unskilled workers, etc.
Re: Massachusetts to tax ride-hailing apps, give the money to taxis
#8As a lifelong resident of Massachusetts, color me unsurprised. This is a tangent but I've also spent some time in India, and a $1.50 Uber ride there would be about $10 in Massachusetts. That has to do with other factors though such as PPP, birth rates and age demographics, immigration policies, number of skilled vs unskilled workers, etc.
And by the big mac index, the cost of living in India is 50% less (at a minimum) than in the US. Direct price comparisons between countries are useless
Re: Massachusetts to tax ride-hailing apps, give the money to taxis
#9I think that this makes sense in concept if not in implementation. Taxi medallions were sold and traded under a certain set of laws which defined their value. The government decided to change those laws, so "buying out" the medallions at some fair price, paid for by the beneficiaries of the change in law, makes sense.
Re: Massachusetts to tax ride-hailing apps, give the money to taxis
#10As a lifelong resident of Massachusetts, color me unsurprised. This is a tangent but I've also spent some time in India, and a $1.50 Uber ride there would be about $10 in Massachusetts. That has to do with other factors though such as PPP, birth rates and age demographics, immigration policies, number of skilled vs unskilled workers, etc.
And by the big mac index, the cost of living in India is 50% less (at a minimum) than in the US. Direct price comparisons between countries are useless
It's not useless. If something is too expensive in one place (5x-10x in Massachusetts compared to India) then it's evidence of some serious problems. My own theory is that the immigration policies of the US prevent enough unskilled workers from filling the roads with lots of Uber drivers.