Ridiculous behavior. I'm glad the black taxis seem to have their customer's well-being at heart.
"Uber, funded by Google, Goldman Sachs and others, has a stated aim of challenging legislation that is not compatible with its business model," said Mr McNamara.
"This is not some philanthropic friendly society, it's an American monster that has no qualms about breaching any and all laws in the pursuit of profit, most of which will never see a penny of tax paid in the UK."
Besides the ridiculous attempt to conflate Uber with evil bankers, it seems strange to suggest "most" of the profit will never be taxed in UK. Aren't all the UK drivers paying taxes?
> Besides the ridiculous attempt to conflate Uber with evil bankers, it seems strange to suggest "most" of the profit will never be taxed in UK. Aren't all the UK drivers paying taxes?
They would, yes - but when any big company gets bad press for not paying taxes in the UK (for example Google), nobody uses the excuse "but their staff in the UK still pay UK tax", the focus is on whether the company's profits are being taxed.
>> "They would, yes - but when any big company gets bad press for not paying taxes in the UK (for example Google), nobody uses the excuse "but their staff in the UK still pay UK tax", the focus is on whether the company's profits are being taxed."
Because the tax paid by employees is insignificant compared to the tax the company should be paying.
Umm, citation needed. Salaries are usually at least 50% of a company's expenses, and UK tax on salaries will be 30-40% of that, so that's at least 15-20%, likely more.
Citation needed for sure, but being a big % of expenses doesn't mean anything either way - salaries could be 100% of your expenses, and tax rates could be 90%, but if the company has revenue of 100x and expenditure of 10x then 90% of that 100% is still only 9x, which is the equivilent to a 10% tax on their 90x company profits. (Equally, salaries could be a small percentage of expenditure, but if the company makes only a small amount of net profit then tax on salaries could easily dwarf tax on the company's profits.)
Ignore my numbers, my point was just that without knowing total amount spent on salaries, total net profit, and the tax rates on both, there's no way to state which is going to provide more taxes, and that therefore there's no point talking numbers on one side without the other side to match. (But yes, your point is accurate.)
The company's profits are far in excess of the employee salaries that are taxed in most cases anyway. That's the goal. If the goal was to retain exactly $0 in profit by paying your employees generously, then yes, the taxes your employees paid would be enough.
Uber gives 80% of the fair to the divers. I'm struggling to see how it could earn profits "far in excess" of of that 80% unless it invests whatever is left of the 20% after overhead in some really lucrative City investments.
Presumably a chunk of that 80% gets written off by the drivers in expenses, so not all of it will be taxable. Whether it's 10% or 90% that's nontaxable I've no idea.
The company's profits are far in excess of the employee salaries
No. For a startup, the company's profits are zero or negative. They might have significant revenues, but they will be ploughing all their free cash flow back into growth.
They're probably talking about the Google not having it's corporate offices in the UK. The UK is a massive tax haven anyway, with weird little sub-national groups like the Channel Islands and Isle of Mann.
edit: Yes I'm aware the Channel Islands & Isle of Mann aren't part of the UK, but they are 'British' and massive tax havens, sometimes with one company director per inhabitant.
The Channel Islands and the Isle of Mann are Crown Dependencies[0] and aren't part of the United Kingdom, nor are they part of the European Union (although their citizens are also British citizens and they are part of the EU customs area)
Sure, they are 'crown dependencies'. What's the appropriate term to use instead of 'UK' to include all such fiddly bits? rmc's logic is sound, they just made a mistake of terminology.
It's a moot point. For all practical purposes, and with some exceptions, tax havens around the world are run out of London, by our substantial and much-admired financial services sector.
So, as far as I'm concerned, the correct term for all those fiddly bits - constitutional niceties be damned - is 'the City'.
"Uber, funded by Google, Goldman Sachs and others, has a stated aim of challenging legislation that is not compatible with its business model," said Mr McNamara.
"This is not some philanthropic friendly society, it's an American monster that has no qualms about breaching any and all laws in the pursuit of profit, most of which will never see a penny of tax paid in the UK."
Besides the ridiculous attempt to conflate Uber with evil bankers, it seems strange to suggest "most" of the profit will never be taxed in UK. Aren't all the UK drivers paying taxes?