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

I quit: Miseries of an Uber driver

salon.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 92 posts

Re: I quit: Miseries of an Uber driver

#81

Post by toomuchtodo »

mathattack wrote: post #79
dougabug wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think these companies want to avoid making the drivers look any more like employees than they already do. Frankly, it seems to me that they are in fact employees, over which Uber exerts enormous control, to the point of spying on them, monitoring what they post on social media, what they say to customers about the company, supplying talking points, directing them to disregard certain local transportation regulation…

True - it benefits Uber immensely from a tax perspective (and benefits?) for them to be independent consultants. It's also harder for independent consultants to unionize.

Its going to be brutal on Uber (and Lyft) when the IRS recategroizes all of those drivers as employees, and both companies need to cough up the employment taxes they should've been paying. It happened to Fedex (their Ground division) [1].

[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2014/08/27/fedex-misc...

Re: I quit: Miseries of an Uber driver

#82

Post by baddox »

bko wrote: post #61

> After waiting 20 minutes, I called the driver, who did not speak any version of English I am familiar with. He claimed to be relatively near my house but was unable to tell me how he was going to get there. I canceled and tried again. This time I got a young woman who also apparently didn’t speak English well. As someone whose parents speak English with accents, it really makes me cringe when some Americans complai…

Ideally there would be no need to talk to your driver on the phone in order to find the car. I have only needed to in a tiny portion of my ridesharing trips. But if you do need to, I think it's very reasonable, and not xenophobic, to expect the driver to be able to communicate effectively with an average American (or resident of whatever region you're in).

Re: I quit: Miseries of an Uber driver

#83

Post by microtonal »

Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #73
microtonal wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That does not mean one can't protest it ;). You need a way to refer to an actual lousy GPS as well (long fix time, inaccurate). Lumping everything together makes it hard to be precise (like using 'begging the question' wrongly somewhere else in these comments ;)).

"protest _against_ it" Sorry. I'm still fighting a rearguard action against you crazy Americans' perversion of our language a "long time" ago. (I know. I know. Someone will be along in a minute to tell me that "protest it" was original authentic British English centuries ago.)

"protest _against_ it"

Good point :). As a non-native speaker, I sometimes mess up prepositions... And of course, have a carte blanche to make errors :p.

Re: I quit: Miseries of an Uber driver

#84

Post by bane »

dnautics wrote: post #78
bane wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah you're right. The IRS mileage covers insurance. You can alternately calculate your true expense and deduct that, for example, since he's operating a taxi service, he's probably required to have taxi insurance or risk committing insurance fraud. Since that insurance is much higher than normal car insurance, he probably can deduct more.

it's not a taxi service, and I have one of the insurance companies that is ok with ridesharing. I am sure they have plenty of actuarial data that allows them to set the rates accurately. I'm not double dipping because I won't be deducting gasoline or insurance expenses as a part of the .56/mi deduction. (I don't keep my gas receipts)

Sure, uber is not a taxi service in the same way McDonald's is not a restaurant.

Re: I quit: Miseries of an Uber driver

#85

Post by bane »

dnautics wrote: post #77
bane wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and usually make $1000 on a 50 hour on-call week (~30h of actual drive time). So that's about $20/hour. Now subtract car payments, insurance, wear and tear, etc. Here's an example of how this breaks down: You work 215 hours per month on average (50 * 4.3 weeks) and make $4,300 revenue during that time (or $51,600/year). - Subtract self-employment tax 15.3% - ~$7900 - Taxable income 37,650 - ~$5,300 in taxes so subt…

So. If I were still a postdoc (~40k/year with three years of experience), I would still be paying car payments, insurance. Now, I make those payments and (I think) I can deduct them from my taxes. Of course comparing to a postdoc is unfair because you're putting in ~80 hours a week, which is certainly below minimum wage, and the postdoc market is totally insane. Nonetheless, I am definitely making more than minimum w…

CA Minimum wage is $9/hr.

80 hours/wk * 52 weeks * $9 = $37,440 pre-taxes

> Now, I make those payments and (I think) I can deduct them from my taxes.

If you use your vehicle for only business purposes, then yes, you can. If you mix personal and business use, you have to determine the percentage of use, and you can deduce the business percentage.

Since your business involves your car better than 40 hours/week, you should be able to deduct most of the payments.

> Granted, the take home was much higher at the beginning of the year (avg 1400/wk) than it is now.

So wait, do you make 1000/wk now before or after you deduct expenses and taxes or before? I'm assuming that's your pretax/expense earn?

Regardless, if it's working for you and you enjoy it, that's cool. I just hope you're modeling your expenses and taxes correctly and don't get freaked out come tax season.

Most people I know who 1099 get it grossly wrong every year. Which is why it's recommended you do quarterly taxes.

Re: I quit: Miseries of an Uber driver

#86

Post by mathattack »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #81
mathattack wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True - it benefits Uber immensely from a tax perspective (and benefits?) for them to be independent consultants. It's also harder for independent consultants to unionize.

Its going to be brutal on Uber (and Lyft) when the IRS recategroizes all of those drivers as employees, and both companies need to cough up the employment taxes they should've been paying. It happened to Fedex (their Ground division) [1]. [1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2014/08/27/fedex-misc...

I'm not a lawyer - is this a done deal? With FedEx they were working full time, right? If someone is driving for both Uber and Lyft, isn't it hard to say they should be an employee of one or the other?

Re: I quit: Miseries of an Uber driver

#87

Post by toomuchtodo »

mathattack wrote: post #86
toomuchtodo wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its going to be brutal on Uber (and Lyft) when the IRS recategroizes all of those drivers as employees, and both companies need to cough up the employment taxes they should've been paying. It happened to Fedex (their Ground division) [1]. [1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2014/08/27/fedex-misc...

I'm not a lawyer - is this a done deal? With FedEx they were working full time, right? If someone is driving for both Uber and Lyft, isn't it hard to say they should be an employee of one or the other?

It's a done deal:

http://www.woodllp.com/Publications/Articles/pdf/AlexandervF...

Also, it wasn't the time required from contractors that put them into employee status, but the requirements they were required to follow.

Re: I quit: Miseries of an Uber driver

#88

Post by mathattack »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #87
mathattack wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a lawyer - is this a done deal? With FedEx they were working full time, right? If someone is driving for both Uber and Lyft, isn't it hard to say they should be an employee of one or the other?

It's a done deal: http://www.woodllp.com/Publications/Articles/pdf/AlexandervF... Also, it wasn't the time required from contractors that put them into employee status, but the requirements they were required to follow.

I meant is it a done deal for Uber and Lyft?

Re: I quit: Miseries of an Uber driver

#89

Post by toomuchtodo »

mathattack wrote: post #88
toomuchtodo wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a done deal: http://www.woodllp.com/Publications/Articles/pdf/AlexandervF... Also, it wasn't the time required from contractors that put them into employee status, but the requirements they were required to follow.

I meant is it a done deal for Uber and Lyft?

Ahh! No no, not at all. It hasn't even come up yet with a court or the IRS.

Re: I quit: Miseries of an Uber driver

#90

Post by good_claire »

zb wrote: post #55

The one time I ordered an Uber, we spent 25 minutes waiting while the driver drove around a similarly (but still quite distinctly) named street on the other side of town. After several phone calls, she ended up using her own GPS navigator to find us. So I can corroborate what this article is saying: Uber has absolutely no clue where you are even given both an address and map co-ordinates. Presumably they rely on a te…

Author here - very interesting to find that someone else had the same strange experience. Street names have no place in GPS navigation! The instance I spoke about was a time when there had been a concert at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley, and I am sure that all available UBER drivers were busy driving people home - hence, even though I was 20 minutes away, I might still have been the closest driver. But the estimation of "3 minutes" combined the GPS path showing me leaving from Piedmont Ave. in Berkeley - when I was on the same-named street in Oakland - makes you doubt their app works at all!
Post reply on HN