Hacker News Reader

Comment by sedtrader | Hacker News Reader

Calling Uber a tax firm is akin to calling personal workout equipment a gym. Or calling a bed and breakfast a hotel. Don't get me wrong Uber should pay its fair share of taxes/fees, but bunching apples and oranges together for the sake of policy simplicity comes off as non-progressive in my view.

View on HN

Do Bed and Breakfasts usually operate under contracts with larger corporate entities that set service standards and reap a share of the profits? I'd assume most are small, family run businesses.

> Calling Uber a tax firm is akin to calling personal workout equipment a gym.

You got that exactly right. If I let people pay to use my personal workout equipment, then I'm operating a gym. Uber let's people pay to be driven around and is thus called a taxi service.

>If I let people pay to use my personal workout equipment, then I'm operating gym.

If I let people pay to use my phone, then I am operating a cellular company. If I let people pay to use my lawn mower, then I am operating a grass cutting company. etc... No logically this ruling makes no sense. Just upset taxi companies that want to maintain the status quo.

In those examples you'd be operating equipment rental companies. I'm really not sure how this fits into an analogy with Uber, whose failed rationalization is that they're just a digital service connecting customers with freelance drivers. Filling exactly the same role as a taxi company with a slightly different setup.

"Uber" doesn't own the "workout equipment". Who are they in this analogy?

Uber don't own the equipment but they do:

1. Decide who gets to use it, not you (sole and absolute discretion to accept or decline rides). You may be banned if you don't let someone use your equipment they want you to.

2. Interview and recruit you, the person who owns the gym equipment.

3. Excludes you from knowing who you're entering into a contract with.

4. You must work in exactly the way they say (they set the route, the equipment you're allowed to have,

5. You're not free to negotiate the price higher, they set it.

6. They discipline you.

7. They're in control of refunding "your" customer.

8. Used to guarantee you earnings.

9. They accept the risk of loss, not you.

10. Complaints don't go to you, they go to them.

11. They reserve the right to change any of the above unilaterally.

So basically, they're your boss but you need to bring your own equipment. It'd be like saying my work aren't really my boss if I use my own laptop.

Points taken from the case they lost trying to describe their workers as "self employed", saying Uber worked for the drivers.

https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/asla...

A lot of contractor's work in similar situations -- it seems like you're implying that the passenger is the customer but the passenger is just a package to be delivered. The customer for the driver is Uber. A lot of these are good points, though.

The key difference for many contractors in the UK is the level of control the person paying them has. A right to subcontract is a big one, which is failed with Uber. Also how I perform the work. If Uber were just paying for the package to be delivered, then they'd not care about the precise route, and the drivers could choose which people they do or don't "deliver". Uber exercise significant control over how the work they want done is done, and enough so that it falls under the definition of a "worker" (not employee though).

> The customer for the driver is Uber.

They argued they were not the customer but in fact worked for the drivers. They argued that the driver had a contract with the passenger, paragraph 91 on page 28 explains nicely how odd that seems (I'd copy & paste but it's a scanned pdf).

The precise route is actually an important part of the service provided to customers. Same with ensuring the identity of the driver.

However, I don't see how they can argue the driver has a contract with the passenger since all customer relationship is handled through Uber.

It's certainly an important part of the service Uber offers, but that's rather the point, it's a service they offer to the passenger and contract others to do the work. Then the level of control is such that it makes the drivers workers in the UK. If the control was stronger (more control of hours, equipment, etc) then they'd be employees.

>However, I don't see how they can argue the driver has a contract with the passenger since all customer relationship is handled through Uber.

I fully agree, and I think we both do (at least on this point) with the employment tribunals findings that this doesn't really describe the reality of how things work. The description I referenced is a great attack on what they argue.

I don't follow your examples. How is workout-equipment:gym like uber:taxi-firm?

> non-progressive

I'm not sure what you mean by progress, exactly, but policy simplicity is progress IMHO.

"Uber was founded in 2009 as UberCab" - Wikipedia

Reply on news.ycombinator.com