[nathanvanfleet]

You have a lot of problems with your argument.

If you have a local taxi company, you make tax money from that company. If it's at least in your country, you make tax money from that company. If the support employees are in your city/country, you make tax money from those people.

So if the company is not from your country, and their support/offices/profits all go somewhere else, it's a loss for you (as a city or country) because before you got to make more money from the local taxi companies. Which you would hopefully use to pay for different services (not sure why you think 311 is the only conceivable cost here).

And honestly, you think rich people pay more taxes? Sorry, it's just not the case. 1 person making 100x more than an average person is going to pay less net taxes and will buy fewer things (even if it's more expensive stuff) than 100 people.

[aianus]

> 1 person making 100x more than an average person is going to pay less net taxes and will buy fewer things (even if it's more expensive stuff) than 100 people.

This just isn't true at all.

The top 1% of earners in the US pay more tax than the bottom 90% combined. Sometimes rich people pay a smaller percentage of their income than less-rich people but in absolute terms poor people and middle class constitute a minority of the tax base.

[anjc]

...he was talking about net income and personal expenditure. You're talking about income tax. They're different things. 1 person will buy less than 100 people.

Incidentally, the top 1% pay more tax, in absolute terms, because they earn more than everybody else. What's your point? That's how percentages and progressive taxation works.

[rstupek]

Its not necessarily true that 1 person will SPEND less than 100 people.

[smt88]

You have completely misunderstood everything I said.

I understand that tax revenue goes down when Uber replaces local taxi companies. I'm not arguing with that.

However, Uber can possibly decrease the costs of running the government (police, 311, and possibly others). We can't know for sure without specific numbers, but it's possible that Uber saves a government more money than it removes by avoiding taxes.

And I wasn't saying that rich people pay more taxes. I was saying that rich people using Uber is a redistribution of income, since the rider is almost always wealthier than the driver.