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

reuters.com

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

#31

Post by basch »

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.

Stripe, Square? What makes Uber different from payment processors with built in fraud protection layers?

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

#32

Post by flamedoge »

tensor wrote: post #27
flamedoge wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wort…

So they seem to get the hailing part but at a cost. Like you said, this doesn't solve the friction in payment. I would prefer something like venmo as payment option (debatable on distribution of fee, etc.). Something like pay to register for drivers and a monthly fee option for reduced pay for frequent users would be good for sustainability.

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

#33

Post by peeters »

thrill wrote: post #15
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…

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 it quacks like a duck, it gets taxed like a duck. Uber has made a business out of exploiting legal loopholes. They know it, their users know it, the politicians know it. It's just been a race to close them. I have no sympathy for Uber in this. They obviously provide a valuable service to people, so I'm sure they'll survive. Now they'll just be competing on an even playing field.

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

#34

Post by stormbrew »

vkou wrote: post #21
thrill wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Source on the CRA not allowing cabbies to be contractors? Because as far as I know they almost universally are. Either to the owner of the cab they drive or to the dispatcher.

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

#35

Post by ribosometronome »

Svexark wrote: post #26
BillyParadise wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

When you buy a book from a seller on Amazon, who sets the price?

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

#36

Post by stormbrew »

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…

Can your grocery store contractors come in whenever they want, wear whatever they want, use whatever till software they want?

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

#37

Post by giarc »

chollida1 wrote: post #9

Uber's response. http://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/statement-from-uber-can... One interesting note about the press release to the Canadian newswire service, it highlights that Uber was confounded by Canadian Garret Camp. This is set to go live on July 1st so I guess you can watch the data from that point on to see if it has any effect. > The budget statement estimates the change will raise C$3 million in new reven…

Also on the co-founding team was Oscar Salazar. A classmate of Garret at University of Calgary.

https://www.crunchbase.com/person/oscar-salazar#/entity

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

#38

Post by toomuchtodo »

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...

Also New York, California, and the UK.

https://qz.com/808484/new-york-state-has-found-two-uber-driv...

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/18/business/uber-contests-ca...

http://business.financialpost.com/news/transportation/uber-d...

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/10/uber-drivers-emp...

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

#39

Post by charlesdm »

peeters wrote: post #33
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 it quacks like a duck, it gets taxed like a duck. Uber has made a business out of exploiting legal loopholes. They know it, their users know it, the politicians know it. It's just been a race to close them. I have no sympathy for Uber in this. They obviously provide a valuable service to people, so I'm sure they'll survive. Now they'll just be competing on an even playing field.

Sure. No problem. They've used loopholes for the last 4+ years, which is fine. Given they still have a massively superior service to taxi's, now let them compete.

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

#40

Post by [deleted] »

peeters wrote: post #33
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 it quacks like a duck, it gets taxed like a duck. Uber has made a business out of exploiting legal loopholes. They know it, their users know it, the politicians know it. It's just been a race to close them. I have no sympathy for Uber in this. They obviously provide a valuable service to people, so I'm sure they'll survive. Now they'll just be competing on an even playing field.

[deleted]
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