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

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

#171

Post by robert_foss » Thu, Dec 01, 2016, 5:00 PM UTC

mafribe wrote: post #153

robert_foss wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Swede: 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. 2) There's no hostility towards entrepreneurs as far as I've seen it, quite the opposite. However people in general do seem to realize that there is a very real tradeoff between business interests and the…

You can't have 0% corporate tax and free healthcare and education. Sure you can. You tax more elsewhere, e.g. higher VAT, higher income tax, higher captial gains, higher giraffe tax ... The possibilities are infinite. Taxation is ultimately a social tool to organise how people work as a group/nation, who does what etc. I think Estonia has or had 0% corporate tax.

Right, just to clarify. You can have 0% corporate tax rate, you just have to recoup those taxes elsewhere.

And as corporations are benefiting from free education and healthcare they clearly should pay into that system too.

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

#172

Post by wang_li » Thu, Dec 01, 2016, 5:04 PM UTC

robert_foss wrote: post #26

edblarney wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

As a Swede: 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. 2) There's no hostility towards entrepreneurs as far as I've seen it, quite the opposite. However people in general do seem to realize that there is a very real tradeoff between business interests and the…

> Cheating on taxes is quite literally stealing from every other person in the country.

Does Sweden use some sort of flat fee tax system -- e.g. take the total annual expenses and divide by the population and everyone pays the same amount? If not, then I'd ask whether it's stealing for a person to make less than another person and therefore pay less taxes.

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

#173

Post by Ma8ee » Thu, Dec 01, 2016, 5:10 PM UTC

imafish wrote: post #122

mr_blobs wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reality is more like: 2 out of 10 monkeys spend all their waking hours sacrificing and working so their children can have more than 1 banana and then give 15 out of the 20 bananas they earn to the group. The majority of monkeys in the group gives 0 bananas, but continue to say that the ones that do give the most aren't paying their fair share (and need to give even more). They then have many discussions on how they c…

Despite the exaggeration (2 out 10), this is actually an issue in the Nordic countries, so I do not understand the downvote.

In what way is that an issue in the Nordic countries?

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

#174

Post by xorcist » Thu, Dec 01, 2016, 5:12 PM UTC

mafribe wrote: post #153

robert_foss wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Swede: 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. 2) There's no hostility towards entrepreneurs as far as I've seen it, quite the opposite. However people in general do seem to realize that there is a very real tradeoff between business interests and the…

You can't have 0% corporate tax and free healthcare and education. Sure you can. You tax more elsewhere, e.g. higher VAT, higher income tax, higher captial gains, higher giraffe tax ... The possibilities are infinite. Taxation is ultimately a social tool to organise how people work as a group/nation, who does what etc. I think Estonia has or had 0% corporate tax.

Estonia has 20% corporate tax according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_tax . Sweden has 22% according to the same document. Not a world of difference.

Reducing corporate friendliness to the tax rate is overly simplified of course. Sweden is on the whole a rather easy to start a company in, there is one single government entity to deal with and it can all be done online. There are relaxed accounting rules unless you reach a certain size etc.

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

#175

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Dec 01, 2016, 5:13 PM UTC

nothrabannosir wrote: post #19

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…

some private taxi drivers will prey on tourists by overpricing their services by 3x and waiting at airports. Since their rip-off prices are displayed right there in the window, it's fully legal. Tourists don't know the typical price of a taxi, and fresh off an airplane are not sure what the local currency rate is (Sweden isn't on the Euro), and hence get ripped off. Typically this should lead to more competition ther…

[deleted]

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

#176

Post by miguelrochefort » Thu, Dec 01, 2016, 5:21 PM UTC

SixSigma wrote: post #56

miguelrochefort wrote: post #6

Can someone explain what goes through the head of people that propose such things? Do they not understand basic economics?

Uber makes $2bn loss on $1.8bn revenue. I'm not sure who thinks that's basic economics

I'm not talking about Uber. I'm talking about allowing people to make a profit from ride-sharing.

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

#177

Post by fucking_tragedy » Thu, Dec 01, 2016, 5:23 PM UTC

zzzzzzzzzman wrote: post #107

qyv wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sel…

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

Sounds like the purpose of a tax system to me.

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

#178

Post by miguelrochefort » Thu, Dec 01, 2016, 5:25 PM UTC

GFK_of_xmaspast wrote: post #16

miguelrochefort wrote: post #6

Can someone explain what goes through the head of people that propose such things? Do they not understand basic economics?

What about this proposal is in violation of your model of 'basic economics.'

They're trying to prevent people from earning money in exchange for a service.

Let's say I have a garden, and grew a bunch of tomatoes. Should I be allowed to sell them for money, or should I only be allowed to trade them for other tomatoes?

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

#179

Post by bjourne » Thu, Dec 01, 2016, 5:29 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…

> 1) They are super, super aggressive when it comes to tax things. Cheating on taxes is worse than some major crimes!

Do you think the Greeks, who have made tax evasion a national past-time, are doing it better?

> 2) They are culturally anti-business and anti-entrepreneurial.

In almost any ranking I've seen, Nordic capitals (Stockholm, Copenhagen, Helsinki) scores at the top of the list of startup-friendliness.

> Obviously that has evolved a lot over the last 30 years, but the underlying cultural phenom is still kind of there.

Jantelagen ja. But is it a problem in practice for venture capitalists?

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

#180

Post by dagw » Thu, Dec 01, 2016, 5:34 PM UTC

manarth wrote: post #168

dagw wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or just set up a taxi next to it for 2.5x the price? There's almost certainly a taxi next to it that only charges X, and all taxis are required to clearly post their prices in their windows. The taxi charging 3X is simply banking on the fact the enough people are operating with incomplete information and will just hop into the first taxi they see without fully understanding how the system works.

In the UK, taxi rates are regionally regulated, with local councils dictating the maximum fare (per mile, per minute waiting in traffic, etc). I thought this was fairly common (in first-world countries). As a tourist flying into Sweden, it wouldn't have occurred to me that the fare would be unregulated, and that I would need to exercise caution when choosing a licenced taxi.

Hey, free markets FTW!