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> This type of thing happens all the time. In the UK you can work as an independent contractor for years then one day HMRC will randomly decide to make a case that you're were actually an employee the whole time and should have been paying a significantly higher rate of tax.

I assume you're referring to the IR35 laws - which were brought in specifically to combat a form of tax avoidance by highly paid contractors on long-term projects, who functioned exactly like employees (by being a contractor instead of an employee you could save a whole bunch of tax in the UK).

Yes, IR35 is a complicated pain - but everyone and their dog in the UK tech scene knows that contracting is/was the way to pay less tax. So it makes sense that HMRC is attempting to close the loophole.

> Uber paid their taxes as they understood UK tax law.

They were specifically attempting to use a loophole to avoid paying VAT the standard way (by claiming they're a "Tour Operator"). They've already lost multiple cases around the world for doing similar bad-faith interpretations of laws - so I think in this case it's Uber doing the exploiting.

>>Yes, IR35 is a complicated pain - but everyone and their dog in the UK tech scene knows that contracting is/was the way to pay less tax.

"pay less tax in exchange for less job security and fewer benefits." Fixed it for you.

The concern of tax rules being unclear and causing confusion and distress is a real concern, but that's off topic.

Uber willfully misunderstood tax law to their advantage. Were most other taxi companies charging VAT as tour operator even before Uber started? If so, you would be right that this a concern of unclear rules and arbitrary application of them...

But that's not the case

https://www.accountingweb.co.uk/any-answers/should-taxi-firm...

> Given government spending is out of control

UK spending is barely above average for industrialised countries. After a decade of austerity, British people are getting poorer and poorer.

There was no austerity. Government spending actually went up during that period.

Total spend or age adjusted per capita? Those are very different things when you have a growing and ageing population

Total spend went up.

You're wrong.

"Spending per cent of national income" it went down every year, from around 2009 until the pandemic.

https://obr.uk/forecasts-in-depth/brief-guides-and-explainer...

Sometimes I wonder about people who make such transparently incorrect statements like “there was no austerity”. When confronted with the data like you provided do they actually absorb that information? Usually it seems the answer is no but I don’t understand how you internalise it in a way that doesn’t conflict with your priors.

Government spending actually went up during that period. See chart 1: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/public-spending-sta...

You can try and redefine austerity into whatever best fits your politics if you like.

Well done on redefining austerity.

P&G was able to argue in court that Pringles are a type of cake rather than a type of potato chip (crisp in the UK) which means VAT doesn’t apply to them. In the UK cake is sold free of VAT.

I guess my point is that there is clearly a precedent for success by doing this sort of thing. Unfortunately.

Yeah, they look like crisps, but they're actually made from different flours, unlike crisps.

I know but even so to classify it as a cake rather than a crisp is absurd.

I think the idea that HMRC (who have a limited enforcement budget and were pressured into taking this action by outside campaigners) is the one exploiting the tax system and corporations that spend vast sums of money coming up with creative reinterpretations of terms to dramatically increase their post tax profitability are merely bemused by its complexity is an odd take. Particularly when the company in question is notorious for creative reinterpretation of or plain ignoring regulations inconvenient to it.

VAT isn't a particularly complicated tax. This dispute relates to the fact Uber tried and failed to convince UK courts that its drivers were self employed under UK law so it lost its grounds for only owing VAT on commissions. (afaik they hadn't provided any mechanism to pay VAT invoices to the minority of drivers with self-employment earnings over the VAT threshold, so it's difficult to argue they were doing their level best to comply with VAT law under the "self employed contractor" model anyway)

IR35, which you are referring to, is an absolute fucking nightmare for independent consultants. And lately “Managed Services Company” legislation seems to be their new attack vector.

However VAT is generally pretty clear, and we know Uber skirt every law and tax liability they possibly can. Looks like it’s time to pay the piper…