Sweden proposes ban on ride-sharing services that make profits • Hacker News Board

Re: Sweden proposes ban on ride-sharing services that make profits

#101

Post by kartan » Thu, Dec 01, 2016, 3:45 PM UTC

zzzzzzzzzman wrote: post #42

"1) Cheating on taxes is quite literally stealing from every other person in the country. That being said I think there is a lot of small scale cheating going, especially for small cash-driven businesses." I disagree. One monkey says to a group of other monkeys, "we all need to take one of the 5 bananas we individually have and place it into a central banana disbursement fund". Then, another monkey from the group ref…

> One monkey says to a group of other monkeys,

A monkey can live for himself, in a modern society no human is an island. You need extremely complex systems on place: Communications, education, law, law enforcement, infrastructures, etc.

Millions of human beings in a complex society are not 5 monkeys. I understand your point, but I think that it doesn't apply at this scale.

Re: Sweden proposes ban on ride-sharing services that make profits

#102

Post by laughingman123 » Thu, Dec 01, 2016, 3:45 PM UTC

These anti neoliberal nuts don't understand , for them taxation is just stealing .. They collectively bury their heads and ignore that any business they do is possible because of collective efforts of the human community before them, from invention of fire to quantum theory. And enabling people to study and have healthcare has overall positive benifita on society . How many scientists, engineers have we missed because they couldn't go to college and rather work minimum wage jobs unable to fulfill their dreams?

This neo liberal definition of liberty is just a religion in disguise.

Re: Sweden proposes ban on ride-sharing services that make profits

#103

Post by adamlett » Thu, Dec 01, 2016, 3:45 PM UTC

edblarney wrote: post #36

adamlett wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) They are super, super aggressive when it comes to tax things. Cheating on taxes is worse than some major crimes! Which major crimes would that be? I'm a Dane, and this sounds ridiculous to me. 2) They are culturally anti-business and anti-entrepreneurial. That is way overstating it at best, and at worst just BS. True, we in the Nordic countries (or at least in Denmark), don't have quite the reverence for business…

My (half) brother is Danish. The 'anti tax' statement is his, told to me, while I was in Denmark. The Danish tax authorities have to know specific things about your status - including if you carpool to work or not, in order to establish your tax status. They tax in a different way there - they establish your 'effective rate', rather than doing tons of deductions. Whether or not you carpool for example, affects your r…

misrepresenting anything - even a minor issue to the tax authorities - is a fairly serious crime

You have to understand that in Denmark, salaried workers don't have to report their own taxes. Their employers and bank are obliged to do it for them. Only on the rare occasion when the bank or the employer don't have all the information, do most Danes have to edit their tax return. This state of affairs makes it hard to make "an honest mistake", when doing your taxes, and you have to go out of your way to cheat outright.

It's hard to comment on your anecdote about the murderer when I don't know the details, but I can tell you that the penalty for murder in Denmark is between 5 years and life in prison. I think the average sentence is 12 years, but I can't find a source for that.

Re: Sweden proposes ban on ride-sharing services that make profits

#104

Post by cyxxon » Thu, Dec 01, 2016, 3:46 PM UTC

maxencecornet wrote: post #39

That's insane, when you know that this is exactly the buisness model of one of France's largest, if not the largest, tech company Blablacar

As a German, I say that is exactly what is wrong with Blablacar, so this is a good thing ;) Blablacar rpesents itself as a service that matches people having a spot in their car and people needing to travel from A to B, and for a long time they did just that. Now they started mandatory booking though their payment system (with the added benefit of insurance, granted), and everything about it has become worse: my girlfriend lives far away from big cities, but relatively close to the Autobahn, and it is much worse now for her to get a ride. Previously she could message people offering rides that should take them close to her place and ask them how much they wanted, now private communication is prohibited, fares seem precalculated, etc...

I guess it is a hard market, sure, but nobody forced them to compete against simple ride sharing websites, but they did, and now try heavy handed tactics once they captured a big piece of the market... /rant

Re: Sweden proposes ban on ride-sharing services that make profits

#105

Post by ionised » Thu, Dec 01, 2016, 3:47 PM UTC

zzzzzzzzzman wrote: post #42

"1) Cheating on taxes is quite literally stealing from every other person in the country. That being said I think there is a lot of small scale cheating going, especially for small cash-driven businesses." I disagree. One monkey says to a group of other monkeys, "we all need to take one of the 5 bananas we individually have and place it into a central banana disbursement fund". Then, another monkey from the group ref…

That other monkey is free to leave and go far away, and not reap the benefits afforded to the group of monkeys when they pool their assets.

Re: Sweden proposes ban on ride-sharing services that make profits

#106

Post by _0w8t » Thu, Dec 01, 2016, 3:48 PM UTC

edblarney wrote: post #9

kalleboo wrote: post #3

So, they want to encourage ride-sharing in the original meaning - carpooling. Not the "taxi company in disguise" meaning. Sounds fair enough to me. For context, the taxi regulation in Sweden is very light. There is no medallion system limiting the number of cars, and no regulation of prices. You just need an extended driver's license, an approved taxi-meter (same as how grocery stores need their scales to be approved…

"So, they want to encourage ride-sharing in the original meaning - carpooling. Not the "taxi company in disguise" meaning. Sounds fair enough to me." I'm not necessarily a fan of Uber, but this is ridiculous. If 'taxis' are legal in Sweden then there's no reason Uber should not be able to operate so long as they are obeying the laws . Ostensibly, this is about a specific issue - distance travelled and the lack of abi…

In Norway there is definitely no hostility in any form towards entrepreneurship. In fact it is safer to start a private company here as after closing down the business one still can apply to some social support from the state.

Also there are lot of various free courses about how to do reporting and accounting for new businesses. And one can do the accounting oneself in a spreadsheet and/or free web sites when the business is small.

Re: Sweden proposes ban on ride-sharing services that make profits

#107

Post by zzzzzzzzzman » Thu, Dec 01, 2016, 3:48 PM UTC

qyv wrote: post #86

zzzzzzzzzman wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If you live on a farm off the grid...." I agree, the monkey that does what you described shouldn't be forced to pay taxes. But I am still confused as to why the monkey and his family can't attend private schools, drive on private roads, receive medical services from a private doctor, and donate any bananas he voluntarily decides to contribute to right the wrongs of his monkey island :) In my opinion, the other monke…

And private police, private military, private customs & border security... You cannot live in a modern nation and not rely on services that are paid for by taxes.

Why is the average able bodied citizen unable to protect himself the local and national level?

Why don't the concerned citizens pool their funds together to pay for their own defence?

If we must pay taxes for these things, why must their be so much corruption and fraud (think of the expensive fighter jets and missiles that government agents purchase at inflated prices, from companies that funnel profits to a very select few rich individuals, who funded the campaigns necessary to get the government agents in power?)

Re: Sweden proposes ban on ride-sharing services that make profits

#108

Post by arkitaip » Thu, Dec 01, 2016, 3:51 PM UTC

edblarney wrote: post #44

arkitaip wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nonsense. The Nordic countries are the best to start a/do business in [1][2] [1] http://www.forbes.com/best-countries-for-business/list/ [2] http://www.doingbusiness.org/rankings

The Nordic companies are not 'the best' at startups, not remotely close. They have some nice attributes. I worked for the EU government studying these issues a decade ago. One of the primary reasons it's hard for startups over there, is that there are really weak eco-systems - you need 'big pocketed' acquierers (among other things) to sustain the model. Paradoxically, the (admittedly older) 'anti business' attitude,…

You are contradicting yourself and honestly I don't see the point of correcting these falsehoods but I will note that Sweden and other Scandinavian countries are doing pretty damn well internationally considering how small the populations are [1][2][3].

[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnol...

[2] http://smashdig.com/artikel/10-most-successful-swedish-start...

[3] https://sweden.se/business/10-world-shaping-swedish-companie...

Re: Sweden proposes ban on ride-sharing services that make profits

#109

Post by pyrale » Thu, Dec 01, 2016, 3:51 PM UTC

toss1941 wrote: post #60

justinhj wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you look at many factors Sweden is way more livable than the USA. Perhaps that explains why culturally they don't mind paying higher taxes. I've worked in the US and Canada. I pay more taxes in Canada but the social services and health care are much better here and I can go to great public facilities like gyms and pools that I had to pay for privately in NY

Fully public facilities like gyms and pools are just one brand of soda, as it were. Some people don't like Pepsi, they'd rather drink Coca Cola, or put more plainly at least go to gyms and pools where the people have an appreciation of the cost of good things. There is the central difference between the American way of doing things, people have more freedom to choose what they spend their money on. If you are subsidi…

> There is the central difference between the American way of doing things, people have more freedom to choose what they spend their money on.

And people which don't have money have less freedom and no choice about it. Maybe the problem is that you decided that freedom is dead presidents printed using green ink.

Re: Sweden proposes ban on ride-sharing services that make profits

#110

Post by laughingman123 » Thu, Dec 01, 2016, 3:54 PM UTC

zzzzzzzzzman wrote: post #61

j-pb wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the banana was grown on the fields that the other monkeys paid for, transported on the roads that the other monkeys paid for and the monkey received it's education on how to get it's banana from a school that the other monkeys funded. If you live on a farm off the grid have solar power, collect your own rain water and don't ever leave your plot of land fine don't pay taxes. But if you want the niceties of civ…

"If you live on a farm off the grid...." I agree, the monkey that does what you described shouldn't be forced to pay taxes. But I am still confused as to why the monkey and his family can't attend private schools, drive on private roads, receive medical services from a private doctor, and donate any bananas he voluntarily decides to contribute to right the wrongs of his monkey island :) In my opinion, the other monke…

If the monkey expects other poor bananaa-less monkeys to behave in same standards as his educated ass deserves , then he better his bit to help progress the society which allowed him to have all those said benefits .

The monkey may buy his "private banana peeling education" , but failing to remember his anscestor monkeys and community monkeys who kept improving art of banana peeling and publishing it freely lead to the said monkey to live in era of "modern banana peeling" is a crime.

There is no price for education than helping others receive it , paying your bit to improve the overall condition of monkey kind is the only way to repay the debt