[boona]

>Uber has made a business out of exploiting legal loopholes.

I find that kind of argumentation silly. They brought to the taxi industry, what is common in other industries, like construction, tech, etc. Stated differently, Uber has been able to provide a competitive service by legally structuring themselves in a way maximizes return for the themselves, for the driver, but still keeps costs low client due to say structuring.

[peeters]

They brought everything they could. I'm not criticizing them for that. Taxi companies didn't even have apps 5-10 years ago. But a ton of what they have been doing obviously goes against the spirit of the laws they're leveraging. The GST loophole is a perfect example. It's meant to allow tiny businesses to avoid the paperwork and overhead associated with collecting GST. But Uber would be doing all that overhead for their "employees", since they broker all of the fee collection. So the employees wouldn't have to bear that cost anyway. Why should they be exempt then?

[boona]

I'm still not sure how that's considered a loophole. The people who work for them are in fact small business operators, and it most certainly does simplify the process for them not having to pay for GST.

Is your argument that you wish they had structured it differently so they were forced to pay more taxes? If that was the case then the drivers would be making a less, and the passengers would pay a more to cover the costs of the GST, and I don't see the point in that.

If taxi companies want to level the playing field, why don't structure themselves in more innovative ways like Uber did instead of forcing others to pay more taxes?

[slavik81]

The GST is supposed to apply to just about everything equally, with a few exceptions. If you want consumers to pay less GST, vote for a government that will reduce it, as in 2006.

The government is doing exactly the right thing in changing the law so that irrelevant differences in corporate structure don't affect the tax paid.

[_jal]

> Uber has been able to provide a competitive service by legally structuring themselves in a way maximizes return for the themselves, for the driver, but still keeps costs low client due to say structuring.

In fact, they haven't. They're taking a huge loss on subsidies to the fares.

[sten]

That the maximum is a loss doesn't negate it's place as the maximum. They could do worse for themselves. A house could burn down faster.

[_jal]

Of course. I was pointing out that they are not keeping costs low. They are just unsustainably subsidizing them.