Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Canada seeks to end Uber's tax advantage over taxi companies

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 185 posts

Re: Canada seeks to end Uber's tax advantage over taxi companies

#21

Post by vkou »

thrill wrote: post #20
vkou wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I staff my grocery store with contractors, can I claim a $30,000/contractor tax exemption too? The intent of the law is pretty clear - serious businesses (That do more then $30,000/year in sales) are expected to pay taxes. Small ones are not - because of the small amount of tax revenue, and the high burden of compliance for individuals. The cost of compliance for Uber is trivial. It's a bloody app, for Pete's sake…

Should you not be able to?

The Canadian Revenue Agency seems to think that I should not do that. They also seem to think that traditional taxi companies are also not eligible for this exemption.

Re: Canada seeks to end Uber's tax advantage over taxi companies

#22

Post by flamedoge »

rpeden wrote: post #14
flamedoge wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need a Canadian Taxi hailing app. We can make it.

Does that mean you're interested? If so, let's get some people together, organize an in-person or virtual meetup, and get the ball rolling.

Ok! pm me

Re: Canada seeks to end Uber's tax advantage over taxi companies

#23

Post by BillyParadise »

vkou wrote: post #19
thrill wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber drivers are not employees. They are independent contractors. Uber, as part of their service, collects money from riders, giving both the rider and the driver a comfort factor as they don't have to deal with cash. As "hobby" businesses they each individually were enjoying the exemption. Now they will not - because we can't have "hobby" businesses causing discomfort to the well connected.

If I staff my grocery store with contractors, can I claim a $30,000/contractor tax exemption too? The intent of the law is pretty clear - serious businesses (That do more then $30,000/year in sales) are expected to pay taxes. Small ones are not - because of the small amount of tax revenue, and the high burden of compliance for individuals. The cost of compliance for Uber is trivial. It's a bloody app, for Pete's sake…

Agreed re. contractors. When you use the Uber app, you pay Uber. Not Joe Shmoe and his nice newish car. Therefore the HST should be payable, to Uber.

In turn, drivers who earn > $30k should provide their HST number to Uber, and Uber should be billed HST in remittances.

In turn, drivers can write off HST paid on all business-related expenses.

Yay, Value Added Taxes.

Re: Canada seeks to end Uber's tax advantage over taxi companies

#24

Post by branchless »

vkou wrote: post #7

The fact that they weren't paying GST is mind-boggling. The purpose of the exemption is to let someone running a tiny hobby business sell their products without having to deal with tax headaches. The purpose of the exemption was never to let a mega-corporation take the exemption of each employee, multiply it by the number of employees, and pretend that they don't need to pay tax. What next? A grocery store taking the…

21st century capitalism: gaming the system rather than actual productivity improvements that make lives better.

Re: Canada seeks to end Uber's tax advantage over taxi companies

#25

Post by thrill »

The new national budget unveiled Wednesday by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Liberal government took aim at document processor providers such as Microsoft Word [MSFT], to force them to collect the goods and services tax (GST) on every document created using their software. Trudeau stated, "(The Royal) we are quite disappointed that many attorneys and other value-added providers within Canada are creating documents that result in multi-million (Canadian, but still...) dollar settlements without a tax being gathered on the value those documents add to the case. Why, individual attorneys can download this software right from Microsoft, create documents worth a fortune to their clients, and not pay us a (Canadian, but still...) cent for the use of that software! Each attorney and complainant ends up having to pay us directly, and that creates awareness and complaints from taxpayers - tres horrible, I say.".

Re: Canada seeks to end Uber's tax advantage over taxi companies

#26

Post by Svexark »

BillyParadise wrote: post #23
vkou wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I staff my grocery store with contractors, can I claim a $30,000/contractor tax exemption too? The intent of the law is pretty clear - serious businesses (That do more then $30,000/year in sales) are expected to pay taxes. Small ones are not - because of the small amount of tax revenue, and the high burden of compliance for individuals. The cost of compliance for Uber is trivial. It's a bloody app, for Pete's sake…

Agreed re. contractors. When you use the Uber app, you pay Uber. Not Joe Shmoe and his nice newish car. Therefore the HST should be payable, to Uber. In turn, drivers who earn > $30k should provide their HST number to Uber, and Uber should be billed HST in remittances. In turn, drivers can write off HST paid on all business-related expenses. Yay, Value Added Taxes.

When I buy a book from Amazon, I pay Amazon, not the seller. Therefore, the seller is an employee of Amazon.

Re: Canada seeks to end Uber's tax advantage over taxi companies

#27

Post by tensor »

flamedoge wrote: post #12
canistr wrote: post #3

I like using Uber. But I also don't like the idea of money flowing out of the country/province/city into Silicon Valley. I'd much rather that the money earned by Uber stays within Canada in some form such as a tax or investment by them into our region. Particularly because Uber-like apps are becoming important to public transportation infrastructure. Additionally, taxi revenue coming from tourism remains in the hands…

We need a Canadian Taxi hailing app. We can make it.

You mean like this?

http://www.itbusiness.ca/news/canadian-alternative-to-uber-l...

Sadly it doesn't address any of the problems with cabs in Toronto.

1. Cabs won't take credit cards by claiming "the machine is broken" when it's not, presumably so that they can avoid reporting tips or fees, or they might just skim your card.

2. Cabs are too expensive.

3. Cabs might not even take you if they figure the ride isn't worth it.

This app doesn't allow you to pay, so doesn't help 1. It actually make 2 worse by charging you $2 just to "hail" a cab with it. I mean, seriously? And it doesn't help with 3 either.

Re: Canada seeks to end Uber's tax advantage over taxi companies

#28

Post by MattRix »

thrill wrote: post #25

The new national budget unveiled Wednesday by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Liberal government took aim at document processor providers such as Microsoft Word [MSFT], to force them to collect the goods and services tax (GST) on every document created using their software. Trudeau stated, "(The Royal) we are quite disappointed that many attorneys and other value-added providers within Canada are creating do…

Now imagine that Microsoft Word was being used to do the selling and payment processing of those documents and it starts to make more sense...

Re: Canada seeks to end Uber's tax advantage over taxi companies

#29

Post by cozzyd »

objclxt wrote: post #4
legulere wrote: post #2

Slowly the price advantage that Uber has by using loopholes fades away.

> Slowly the price advantage that Uber has by using loopholes fades away. They don't even always have a price advantage anymore, especially if there's a surge. I needed a cab from Chicago Midway to my hotel last night, Uber's upfront price was $48 (and an eight minute wait), a regular taxi was $40 (including 15% tip) and no wait. I took the latter.

The Orange line is $2.25 :)

Re: Canada seeks to end Uber's tax advantage over taxi companies

#30

Post by stormbrew »

jacquesm wrote: post #17
thrill wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber drivers are not employees. They are independent contractors. Uber, as part of their service, collects money from riders, giving both the rider and the driver a comfort factor as they don't have to deal with cash. As "hobby" businesses they each individually were enjoying the exemption. Now they will not - because we can't have "hobby" businesses causing discomfort to the well connected.

> Uber drivers are not employees. This is Canada. I'm sure that's how Uber would like to see it but not everybody agrees: http://business.financialpost.com/news/transportation/uber-d...

Ironically, this is something cab companies probably don't want. It'd be cutting off their nose to spite their face. Most cabbies are also contractors and in fact pay to use the cabs they drive on a daily basis.

It would wreck the cab industry if dispatch companies (to which cabs are exclusively tied) had to make all their drivers employees.

Post reply on HN