Lyft Says San Francisco Overcharged It $100 Million In Taxes (techcrunch.com) 34
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Lyft is suing the city of San Francisco, claiming the city unfairly charged the ride-hailing company over $100 million in taxes, Bloomberg reports. The lawsuit alleges that, over the course of five years, San Francisco unfairly labeled money earned by Lyft drivers as company revenue. In the complaint, Lyft maintains that its drivers are its customers, not employees. "Accordingly, Lyft recognizes revenue from rideshare as being comprised of fees paid to Lyft by drivers, not charges paid by riders to drivers," the complaint reads.
so any workplace can class workers as not employee (Score:2)
so any workplace can class workers as not employees and get out of taxes?
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so any workplace can class workers as not employees and get out of taxes?
Just another step on the long path to making corporations and billionaires tax exempt.
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Billionaires already effectively pay no taxes, the taxes they appear to pay, they pay with undeserved income and corruption and classism are endemic and systemic, the rich got rich because the economy is already corrupt and exploitative
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Billionaires already effectively pay no taxes, the taxes they appear to pay, they pay with undeserved income and corruption and classism are endemic and systemic, the rich got rich because the economy is already corrupt and exploitative
Key word being 'effectively'. Even paying nominal taxes offend these people.
Re: so any workplace can class workers as not empl (Score:2)
Billionaires already effectively pay no taxes, the taxes they appear to pay, they pay with undeserved income
If you sell your house for more than you paid for it, then what do you do with that so called "undeserved" income?
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A tax on corporations is the same as a tax on employees, they just reduce the amount they're paying employees accordingly.
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Er, no. You should probably look into "economics" and "how the free market works"... Corporations generally pay employees the minimum they can get away with. Not executives, of course, but the rest of us. Just like corporations sell products and services for as much as the market will bear. Those amounts (wages and prices) are not controllable by any one company, though they are affected by both multiple companies working together and by the government (which is usually bribed^H^H^H^H^H^Hlobbied by the
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Not employees (Score:1)
Just because you think employers are responsible for paying a living wage doesn't make it so.
Just because you want your employer to give you full time benefits like healthcare, vacation days and sick leave doesn't mean you get those
In fact all those things are against your interests!
Contract vs Employee is about control - Lyft workers set their own hours, u
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Re: Not employees (Score:2)
Probably depends on the jurisdiction, but... (Score:2)
In Australia, payroll tax applies for employees' salaries. Money paid to consultants or contractors does not incur payroll tax, but goods and services tax is applied to it.
so drivers can set their own rates? and can work t (Score:2)
so drivers can set their own rates? and can work the DOT (not lift) max hours?
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How does that actually work? Can Lyft compel a driver to take a pickup if the driver looks at what they would make and doesn't think it's worth it?
Re: so drivers can set their own rates? and can wo (Score:2)
Not a Lyft driver. But isn't this what UberEats/DoorDash drivers do? If the tip is too small, your food just sits on the pickup counter, getting cold.
If lift wins can the city fine the drivers for bac (Score:3)
If lift wins can the city fine the drivers for back taxes that they did not pay?
Re: If lift wins can the city fine the drivers for (Score:1)
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That would be the idea - the idea is that the drivers own their own businesses and hire lyft to provide support services to that business.
Except they don't have a business without lyft. Lyft controls everything from top to bottom. You don't own a business, if you're basically owned and controlled by a corporation.
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It seems like Lyft's argument would be frivolous.
The drivers are neither employees nor customers, but contractors and business partners.
Customers are riders who use Lyft's app to purchase services which are delivered by drivers.
The revenue from each ride would be all the money paid to Lyft by each rider's credit card,
and the amounts paid by Lyft to the Driver would be an expense of Lyft against that revenue.
The individual drivers would also have revenue in the total amount paid by Lyft to that driver.
And th
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By that logic, vendors using Paypal and Venmo are contractors and business partners?
No; These two companies are banks and payment processors: which are a different kind of business. Venmo and Paypal do nothing more than handle the collection and transfer of payments - that is the only reason they can take just the fees as their revenue. They are not involved in providing marketing or Eshop services or handling any kind of service or transaction/product fulfillment other than for the payment itself. Pay
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No. The tax would be on the drivers, but because they are small businesses they are exempt. So it appears what SF is doing is aggregating the tax base of all the contractors that work with a company so that the aggregate will fall (well) above the exemption level set by the city, to the tune of $100MM in taxes. Not sure that's legit.
What a crock of shit (Score:4, Informative)
“Lyft considers drivers as its customers,” the company said in the complaint filed in state court. “Accordingly, Lyft recognizes revenue from rideshare as being comprised of fees paid to Lyft by drivers, not charges paid by riders to drivers. Lyft does not treat drivers as employees for any purpose.”
According to Lyft, they have no employees. Only "customers". Here comes the mental gymnastics...Lyft says their companies revenue is provided by fees paid by drivers to Lyft, not money paid from actual customers to driving customers. Lyft doesn't realize that they take all the money in and unfairly divvy it out to the driving customers. I dont know what judges Lyft bought, but this is a ridiculous and specious legal argument.
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Weird. I didn't know Lyft works like this. People who are riding pay drivers directly in cash, or the driver themself processes the customers' credit cards without Lyft handling any of that money other than a fee transferred by the driver to Lyft after the ride?
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Lyft says their companies revenue is provided by fees paid by drivers to Lyft, not money paid from actual customers to driving customers.
This is fantastic news for the drivers. They collect the money from riders and then control how, when, and how much is paid to Lyft. Wonderful, since they control the money, they can now keep more.
it's a top-line tax! (Score:2)
TFA doesn't mention it but this is a tax on your top line revenue before expenses. In most jurisdictions, business income taxes are on your profits, your revenue minus recognized business expenses. But in San Francisco (and CA adds another similar tax on top of this) it's revenue ignoring expenses. So if you're in a thin-margin business manufacturing widgets for $98 and selling them for $100, you will pay tax on that $100. You could even be running at a loss and have to pay the tax.
There are various exe
Double tax? (Score:2)
Wow... (Score:2)
So if I have no way to accept payments, and the person I'm helping pays someone else who then pays me... They're not responsible for ANY of the income I received? They just get a pass?
Either I, me, personally received the money and decide (or not) to pass it along to Lyft... Or it is your income that you're paying for a contractor with. Just because we're not in your rented store or office doing so, changes nothing.
You can't both *have* the control AND *lack* responsibilities.
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